


The Fifth Dimension Wears Us All Down

by solunvar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Bottom Harry, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Non-Consensual Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:20:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22400209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solunvar/pseuds/solunvar
Summary: A collection of different stories I've been writing for and to the past year that I decided to abandon now. Time to move on and all that jazz. But I do think these stories had and have potential. A lot of that potential unfortunately lays in what's not written.Primary ideas I've been playing around with: the Resurrection Stone is the Soul Stone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the wizarding world dies off suddenly except for Voldemort, Nagini and Harry Potter; Voldemort becomes Wardmaster of the Sanctum Sanctorum in London; Voldemort gets stuck possessing a mountain, this teaches him patience; Voldemort 'reincarnates' into a Transylvanian wizard; Voldemort didn't want to rule the world, only Britain after a confrontation with the Ancient One; Harry is not BAMF; Nagini learns to become a woman again; Voldemort/Nagini followed by Voldemort/Nagini/Harry (female); Harry 'reincarnates' as a Muggle Latverian female and tries to get back to the wizarding world, reality shows a different tale;...
Relationships: Harry Potter/Other(s), Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Kudos: 6





	1. Vanquished

### Vanquished

 _Harry’s stomach gave a jolt; the Threstral’s head was suddenly pointing towards the ground and he actually slid forwards a few inches along its neck. They were descending at last… he thought he heard a shriek behind him and twisted around dangerously, but could see no sign of a falling body… presumably they had all received a shock from the change of direction, just as he had._ (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, ‘The Department of Mysteries’)

As Harry slid off the Threstral’s back and found his feet again, he looked about himself, wondering where his friends had ended up. Just a little further, he caught sight of another Threstral walking its flight off.

“Ron?” he called out. “Hermione?”

Worried now, Harry gave a single pat of gratitude on his Threstral’s back and walked a bit further from the telephone box that served as an entrance to the Ministry of Magic.

From the corner of his left eye, he found another two Threstals sniffing each other out.

“Ginny?” he tried then. “Neville? Luna?”

Nobody replied.

The terror he’d felt at the thought of Sirius dying shifted then to a new startling realization. ‘Where are my friends?’ he thought. ‘Did they fall off? I thought I heard a shriek. I definitely heard a shriek then.’ Wariness entered him, casting the street around him in a darker, grimmer light. ‘They can’t all have fallen off their Threstral.’

Now that he was the only human left, the Threstrals seemed to gravitate towards him. ‘We only took six,’ he thought, counting the animals surrounding him now. There were more than fifty Threstrals looking at him now, as if he were their master. Harry shivered. ‘So the entire flock followed us,’ he concluded, a horrific suggestion entering his thoughts. ‘Did they eat them? They did, didn’t they?’

Unnerved, uncertain, haunted by what might already have happened, Harry hurried over to the telephone booth. Shakily he started pushing the right combination. _Six two four four two._

“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic,” a cool female voice said. “Please state your name and business.”

“H-harry Potter,” he replied. “I think my friends are dead!”

‘Thank you,’ the voice said. ‘Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robe.’

A badge flopped out of the coin receptable of the telephone. Numbly, Harry glanced at what was written on it. ‘Harry Potter, concerned citizen’ it read.

“Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wands for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”

Harry didn’t reply. The booth nevertheless descended.

‘They can’t be dead,’ Harry tried to cheer himself up. ‘Ron at least would have screamed if something invisible would start to bite. Ginny! Ginny would have hexed, I’m sure.’ Neville would have only whimpered in fright. Hermione… Harry couldn’t tell. Would she scream, curse or freeze up? Or started punching. He remembered third year and Malfoy’s black eye.

Still, he’d only heard a very brief shriek there, right into their descent.

The booth’s door suddenly opened, while in what felt like the distance, that voice said: “The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening.”

Harry stepped into the Atrium, feeling a sudden wave of loneliness overcome him. ‘I want my friends back.’

He didn’t know whether it was because it was nighttime or because Voldemort had made _arrangements_ , but the only sound that could be heard in the large space was the water splashing into the fountain.

Seeing the golden centaur brought him back to the confrontation with Umbridge in the Forbidden Forest. He sniggered at the memory of Grawp saying “Hermy”, but quickly shut up when he remembered that Hermione was no longer there.


	2. I am the Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the mid-seventies, Voldemort decides on different recipients for his Horcruxes and takes a stroll to Muggle London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a brief snippet of the larger part.  
> The idea being: Voldemort transfers his soul pieces to structures too big or too cherished to be destroyed that have nothing at all to do with his personal life and are spread across the world. One of the Buddhas of Bamyan, perchance? (Destroyed by the Afghan taliban in 2001.)  
> Also known as: conquering wizarding Britain as an experiment in flirting with mortality whilst immortal.

### I am the Mountain

The book fell into the fire.

Almost immediately, Lord Voldemort summoned the book to his side and exerted his will over the flames.

‘I have miscalculated,’ Voldemort immediately concluded and felt that realization course through his being, echoing back to when he was sixteen and had enchanted the book in question with part of his soul.

In hindsight, the decision to protect his ‘diary’ within an approximation of an eternal flame was not the wisest of plans.

Books burn when lit.

‘Metal melts,’ Voldemort mentally added, thinking of his ring and locket. ‘And treasures can be stolen.’

He’d carried his Horcruxes for years, decades even, never quite deciding on a permanent dwelling for himself nor the pieces of his soul.

It was part of his success, the man knew. Always out of reach, never quite there where the Ministry of Magic expected. It allowed him to surprise, this veil of uncertainty, this nomadic existence.

And yet it seems he’d forgotten his first true lesson in magic: the day that blasted Dumbledore knocked on his door and lit up the wardrobe with his treasure box.

To live forever is to adapt forever, to reinvent and transfigure life into life.

With those words, Voldemort’s stream of though went silent. He took down the protections he’d already created, negated the changes he’d wrought over the immediate area and undid his signature markings.

Almost without conscious thought, Voldemort Apparated to a shack near the village of Little Hangleton, repealed his wards and curses, only to pocket the ring he’d left there anew.

The crown he’d left in Hogwarts would have to be left there until some time after Dumbledore had perished, Voldemort decided. Preventive measures need to be just that, not a precursor to exposure.

So it was that this brilliant plan he’d thought of, to hide his soul jars in places from his youth protected by the magic he’d learned as an adult, simmered into stray thoughts. An ebb and flood of associations he only allowed himself to think and feel sporadically.

‘Rationality,’ he decided, ‘is subjective. Dependant on perspective. I need to expand my perspective.’

So it was that the day after - he’d slept in the expanse of his cloak once more - Voldemort ventured into the cesspit of humanity commonly known as London.

It was an interesting experience. Since his travels abroad and with all the plotting and planning and socializing he’d been doing these past years, he’d started to forget what it is like to simply walk and assume a different persona.

London had changed since the War. It was difficult to tell, since a lot of the grime and poverty still clung the streets, but big apartment buildings were being built all over the place. Housing by the government to gather all the riff-raff and keep them away from the rich, Voldemort assumed after reading through several pamphlets. The notion grated. If he’d had the misfortune to have grown up now, he’d probably end up brainwashed by all kinds of hogwash. At least the Depression and then the War had kept expectations and perspective very limited in the orphanage. It all sucked and it all could be bombed any second, so what’s the bleeding point.

In any case: an eye-opening experience, this walking around Muggle London. Because he saw not only what it had been, what it was now, but also what it would become and would then lead up to. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. ‘It’s going to get violent in a couple of years,’ Voldemort concluded. And also of course: ‘I hadn’t realized the gypsies have become this influential among the Muggles.’ Because in every park and crossing almost every street there they were: women and men dressed in loose garments, holding hands, kissing, some even showing their naked upper torso. Men didn’t shave anymore, it seemed. They all grew beards.

Voldemort felt like cursing them. One of the pitfalls of splitting a soul during puberty. He’d never grow a full beard, his arm pits were practically bare and his chest pure skin. He didn’t mind. The further away from that unshaven Merlin bedamned codger Dumbledore he looked, the happier he was.

A vague memory floated through Voldemort’s vision, of a miscast spell in transfiguration by some Hufflepuff he’d forgotten the name of that had shredded Dumbledore’s upper robe. That man had as much hair on his back as he had on his chin. Simply monstrous.

On that note, Voldemort realized he’d arrived at his destination. The British Museum in Great Russel Street.

Horcruxes need to be durable after all. Sure, his cup and locket were easily a thousand years old, but Voldemort certainly wasn’t planning to hang around a mere thousand years. Voldemort was in it for the long haul.

And what better place to observe the deterioration of material objects than the British Museum, where Britain displayed its bounty for the world to admire?

Also of course to see whether he could learn from any Egyptian tomb raider that might still work for the place. It’s not like the goblins would tell of their experience after all. Those buggers denied humans everything they could.


	3. The Ferryman's Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first task doesn't go quite as foreseen by Harry and Hermione.

### The Ferryman’s Gift

The crowd hushed after the dragon roared its hatred.

They should have gotten used to it by now. It was, after all, the fourth dragon they got to see. Every dragon roared and blasted its flames.

Yet for all their ferociousness, none of the other dragons held such a nasty demeanor, nor looked as much vicious.

The Hungarian Horntail is of course a special breed. Named not after the country it had come from, for Hungary sheltered no mountains, but named for the people it had chased across the Pannonian basin. In all actuality, the Hungarian Horntail could easily be compared to that other Carpathian breed, the Ukrainian Ironbelly, or even the Transylvanian Sharpfang. Dragons that sheltered in the same mountains, yet hunted different regions.

Of all European dragonbreeds, it was the Horntail that held the most frightening reputation, for it was amongst the least _domesticated_ breeds known in Europe.

These facts and many more flittered across the minds of those watching the Horntail mother roar. This contest, it dawned on the attendants, is quite some leagues removed from the Gobstone Tournament.

Then, movement flittered across the champions’ tent and the tournament’s last participant stepped out.

The silence, if possible, increased.

The Boy-Who-Lived. A legend, some would argue. Fourteen years old, others would counter. What would he do?

The boy raised his wand and cast a spell.

The audience waited, curious.

Five minutes passed. Nothing happened.

The boy seemed to realize this as well.

Looked at the other side of the arena where the other champions were held.

Then the boy snapped his gaze upwards, to his school mates and professors.

The boy obviously decided something.

Stepped further into the arena.

Tried to summon the egg towards him.

Miscalculated his spell, because the egg did not stir, yet he shot into the air.

A mid-air twirl, hastily trying to correct his course, the boy tried to avert his destination.

Failed miserably.

The Horntail with its sharp gaze did not miss.

Teenage girls all over shouted in alarm.

Fire shot out of the dragon’s mouth.

The boy didn’t stand a chance.

* * *

For a brief, eternal instance, Harry Potter felt it. The singing of the flame, the lick of the sun, the fire asunder. Too hot too fast.

Instinctively, he’d collapsed into a ball, legs and arms protecting his vital organs, moments just before.

In that position, he became aware again.

Couldn’t quite place his environment.

He’d read in a magazine once that some people painted their walls white and bought only white furniture to hide the clutter of their existence. Minimalism, he thought the style was called.

He never imagined minimalism would be a word to describe a rowing boat. Nevertheless, there he was, laying in a rowing boat, not unlike the one Hagrid had taken him in years before.

_What happened?_ Harry thought to himself. _Where am I?_

A throat cleared.

Harry turned his head in confusion.

A man he’d never before seen was rowing the boat, it seemed. And they were rowing across a misty, white sea.

“Who are you?” he asked, almost automatically. The man had the broadth and length of his erstwhile friend, yet seemed much older. Timeless, even.

“I go by many names, boy,” the man’s voice rumbled. “It’s been a while since I’ve found myself in a boat however, so you might as well call me the ferryman.”

Harry uncurled and turned to sit facing the man. “The ferryman?” he mumbled. “Where are we going?”

The man shrugged his broad shoulders. “Does anybody ever really know where they’re going?”

“What happened? Why am I here?”

The man looked him in the eye.

“You died, lad,” the man said.

Harry looked away.

The fire had been real, then.

“Luckily for you,” the man continued, “you weren’t alone.”

Harry looked around the boat, wondering what the man meant.

Then he saw it. Like an odd cross between a gnome and a house elf, a little _thing_ sat behind him. Sheltering in his shadow, it seemed, as if afraid of the ferryman. The thing had red eyes.

Harry scratched the back of his head in confusion. “I don’t… I… What is it?”

The ferryman laughed, causing the boat to rock.

“That, laddie, that’s Tom Riddle,” he said. “Least the part of him that you carried.”

Harry looked back at the creature. Lord Voldemort. That had been inside of him?

Wide-eyed he regarded the ferryman.

“Didnae know about that, did ye?” he said. “Well, as it happens, that fire burned your body to a crisp. So I can’t just send you on your way like that.” The man took a couple of strokes before he continued. “Your companion probably would succeed better in returning as a spirit, but honestly, I’m not going to let him go now that he’s here. If anybody’s going to get a chance at life, it’s definitely you.”

Harry didn’t know what to feel about that. He’d seen burn victims in the newspaper before. They looked horrible. And that was before doctors sewed their butt to their face. Harry doubted he’d like that. While he wasn’t hairy in the least, he sincerely never wanted his beard to actually consist of butt hair.

“I’m afraid,” the man said, “that you’re going to have to resign yourself to some awkwardness at first.”

Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”

The man shrugged. “I can only return you to the body of somebody who’s died the exact second your own body died. It’s the way this goes, you see.”

Harry didn’t, of course.

“Of the hundred twenty four people who died when you did,” the ferryman further explained, “the most compatible to you in terms of age, distance and frankly quality, still is quite a difference to what you’re used to.”

Harry settled for a nod. “Who is it?”

The ferryman grinned. “Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

Resigned to the unknown, Harry sighed. “What do I have to do?”

The ferryman set the oars down, then grasped his shoulders tightly. “Why, drown of course!”

Harry was thrown out of the boat, into the sea. As he descended, it became clear he was going to end up at the center of a whirlpool. He tried to hold in his breath for as long as he could. On instinct mostly, because rationally he knew he’d already died. It became difficult the faster he felt himself whirl and twirl, the more his body fell victim to its surroundings.

Then the inevitable happened and he breathed in.

* * *

When he exhaled, he felt different.

Woozzy.

_What-_ his first thought became.

Then he opened his eyes in confusion. _Where?_

He started to move his arms, but felt incredible weakness even in that action. Slowly, almost gently, he lifted his hand towards his face. _’These hands,’_ he thought, _’are not my hands.’_

He tried to shift his body in order to try to get some semblance of control over his situation.

He remembered the boat now.

The ferryman.

Voldemort’s thingy.

Harry’s stomach turned.

_’Voldemort’s been inside of me all my life.’_ Almost involuntarily, a spasm wrecked through his body. _’Vomit!’_

The promise of vomit gave him strength he didn’t know he had. In one motion, he’d turned his body and lifted himself up to his hands and knees. All this just before whatever had to get out, came out.

His cough or whatever the barfing sound accompanied sounded dangerous. As if he’d been suffering from a cold - the kind of cold that kills instead of hinders.

_’My limbs are shaking,’_ he realized moments later.

Then he got a semi-coherent look at who he’d become.

_’I’m a girl,’_ he realized. That sudden dissociation of who he’d been, how he’d identified himself, caused him to look around himself in confusion.

Concrete. Old machinery. A lot of dust and rust. Symbols he didn’t recognise. Weeds and bushes sprouting from every nook and cranny.

_’The silence is eerie,’_ he noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically: Harry's become a Muggle girl who died from starvation in Latveria. He tries to get back to the wizarding world in Britain, but European borders are frontiers and life ain't fair.  
> Might have become a fem!Harry/Winter Soldier; might have become a fem!Harry/Wanda Maximoff or even a fem!Harry/Pietro Maximoff story. Or even fem!Harry/Winter Soldier with Wanda and Pietro as kids (don't you just feel your mind explode at the possibilities).  
> In any case: the purpose was not to make this a Hollywood-style adventure, but simply learning to live with what you have or were given and letting bygones be bygones.


	4. The Dark Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort's resurrection doesn't quite go as planned. Somewhat crack!fic.

### The Dark Horse

There is more to magic than simple wandwaving.

Magic had, after all, existed from the dawn of civilization, predating agriculture by thousands of years. As clans prospered and evolved into communities, so too did their lexicon and understanding of nature evolve. Communities fought and flourished, different folks and cultures flittered into existence. Castles, boroughs, cities gathered and separated. Walls established boundaries as effective as rivers and mountains. Those within could not fathom how those outside could possibly exist. Those outside did not realize the depth established within confinity.

Which is of course how it came to be that the Dark Lord Voldemort, forgot a most crucial lesson learned long ago by many a tribe:

_“The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something so pure and defenceless to save yourself, you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.”_

And in his hubris, his almost existence, Voldemort erred.

For years later, in a family graveyard the Addams family would call quaint and hospitable, Voldemort attempted to regain his body.

Pettigrew, a rat by profession, offered his arm for his master. Tom Riddle, reluctant father of, had to settle for a bone less (not that he had much choice). Harry Potter reluctantly parted way with his blood. They formed the key components of a ritual and a potion, an alchemic blend that should have worked as deduced. Yet older than dark rites and potions, the rules of the hunt still held sway.

What stepped out of the cauldron once the smoke cleared was not what it had been before.

Harry Potter - Potter for the enemies, thank you very much - blinked his eyes in incomprehension. “This can’t be real,” he mumbled.

Pettigrew didn’t know what to think of things either, it seemed. Dazedly, he looked around his surroundings, the topled cauldron and his arm, as if not quite believing the reality he was faced with.

Harry could understand. After his confrontation with Voldemort in his first year and then almost dying facing a basilisk and witnessing Cedric Diggory’s death, this certainly was not what he imagined events would lead up to.

Before he could get to grips with things, life turned more surreal. It - Voldemort - spoke.

“Wormtail,” Voldemort almost growled. “This is not my body.”

What was once a man tried to look at himself, but couldn’t quite manage it. Trying to look at your back as a human is already difficult to do, but trying the same as a pony? Impossible.

Harry didn’t feel any sympathy for the man at all. In fact, he was starting to feel some amusement in what was happening.

Voldemort obviously heard his snort.

“You, boy!” Voldemort yelled. “This is all your fault! What disgusting things have you been eating that your blood’s this rotten.”

Harry tried to be intimated. He was still clutched tightly by the grim reaper’s statue, so there was that. He didn’t have his wand on him, which was a bit of a bother. He supposed he should be afraid of Wormtail, as he’d proven quite capable of killing. And Voldemort’s red eyes? Unnervingly unnatural. Dare he even think it? Freakish?

Despite all of that, it’s difficult to fear a smallish _pink_ pony, even when it’s shouting at you. Combined with words his uncle Vernon might utilise, causing an inevitable mix of associations?

No, Harry Potter was not going to look at the world quite the same way again.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Voldemort. “It’s just difficult to see you like this.” He paused, thinking of Fred and George and their brand of shenanigans. “You’ve changed so much since the last time I saw you. Did you get a haircut?”

Voldemort obviously tried to express his fury. It came out as a very horselike whinny.

Harry heard Wormtail giggle. _I forgot he was a Marauder too,_ he thought to himself.

Just then, a gigantic snake slithered into the clearing.

“Master?” it called out confusedly. “Master, where are you?”

Voldemort’s back feet stamped. “Ah, Nagini, my precious,” the pony said.

The snake looked at the pony oddly, obviously not understanding.

_Obviously, Parseltongue doesn’t transfer over into a different species,_ he observed to himself. _Interesting._

The snake wound its way over to Wormtail, who’d gone very still and frightened at the sight of her. “Where is master?” she said to the human rat.

A whimper came out of the man’s throat.

Harry decided to go with his intuition. “Your master has accomplished his goal,” he said to the snake in Parseltongue.

The snake immediately turned towards him and wound her entire body around his, her head inches from him.

“What do you know of my master’s goals?” she demanded.

He looked her in the eye and said: “Your master wanted a body very much.”

Nagini’s tongue darted out as he spoke, obviously scenting for the truth. “That is true. That is why you are here.”

Harry nodded and hinted his head towards Voldemort. “Tonight your master used my blood, Pettigrew’s arm and his father’s bone to achieve the body he most dearly wanted to have.” He paused (dramatically, he knew). “Your master decided to become a pony.”

The hiss she gave was quite shocked. The open mouth and exposed fangs an unwelcome reminder of that other snake that tried to eat him.

“You lie,” Nagini said. She then unwound from around him and sought out Voldemort.

Her head wavered in front of Voldemort’s as if she was bespelled by a snakecharmer.

“Nagini, my dear,” Voldemort whispered. “Look at what has become of me.”

Suddenly, Nagini darted forwards with a wide open mouth. Harry had never quite seen a snake try to eat a large animal, so was amazed by the sight. The snake tried to literally eat Voldemort’s entire head, but failed in accomplishing the feat.

Disappointed, the snake leaned backwards.

Voldemort placed a hoove forwards. Something to do with territory, Harry figured. Nagini took it the wrong way.

“I never suspected,” she said brokenly. “All these years I thought master cared about me, cared about snakes.” She turned away from Voldemort, back towards Harry.

“I miss my home,” the snake told him. “I miss the sun.”

Harry remembered well this snake had already killed a man. Small talk definitely was the preferred option. “Where are you from?”

Nagini seemed to hesitate. “Indonesia.”

Harry nodded as if it was an obvious conclusion. “I knew a Brazilian snake once,” he confided. Honestly, growing up in a cupboard and then spending years in a castle in Scotland doesn’t lead up to apt knowledge of geography. He genuinely believed Indonesia neighboured Brazil somewhat.

Luckily, snakes don’t share human non-verbal communication.

“What…” she hissed slowly, as if talking to a small, dumb child. “What happened to your friend?”

Harry smiled. “I set him free, of course.” It was the last accidental magic he’d done as a child. He still felt some satisfaction knowing it was an act of liberation. Like when he freed Dobby the house-elf. Or when Hagrid freed him from a dreadful future at Stonewall, really.

Nagini had obviously been thinking too.

Of course Voldemort decided to interrupt their conversation.

“Wormtail!” the pony shouted. “Wormtail, get up!”

Harry and Nagini turned their heads to see the pony trying to rouse the other man with his feet. The man had slumped down and wasn’t responding at all.

Belatedly, Harry remembered the man _had_ cut off his arm earlier on.

“Wormtail!” Voldemort tried again. “You can’t die, you have to fix this!”

“The rat is dead.” Nagini almost whispered indifferently.

Harry didn’t quite know what to say to that. Honestly, the man deserved it for what he’d done.

Voldemort discovered him again. “Potter!” the ‘man’ demanded. “Do something!”

Harry furrowed his brow in confusion. Tutted his lips as if he was going to say something. Then settled for a sigh. What a ridiculous situation.


	5. An evening stroll with Barnabas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If death should be the next great adventure, why would Albus Dumbledore greet you at an ethereal King's Cross? If life is absurd, death should be too.

### An evening stroll with Barnabas

The grass leading up to the Forbidden Forest was trampled and overturned, as much a victim of the battle as the wizards and witches that had fallen. The battle had not - despite the quiet of the moment - been won nor lost. Rather that the oppressors had been beaten and the invaders stalled.

A war of attrition would leave no victors, Harry Potter had realized.

Voldemort must have too, for why else would he narrow down the conflict to just the two of them?

Harry had spent enough time in the man’s head this past year to understand the ‘Dark Lord’ thought of him more as ‘Hans & Gretel’ than ‘David and Goliath’. Up until they’d set out for Hogwarts on a liberated dragon, up until perhaps even the Fiendyfire in the Room of Requirements, Harry had clung onto his illusions of ‘Jack and the Giant Killer’.

Now, setting forth on this last walk, Harry reminded himself of that other biblical tale: the son, the sinner and the cross. Except, of course, that his friends thought to shelter him as opposed to sell him out.

Really, Harry was okay with it. With what awaited him.

Voldemort was a _riddle_ few could ever hope to resolve. And Harry was, in the end, just a piece of the jigsaw.

He’d had a good run of it, all things considered. He’d saved some people, got to know some good people. All his life, nostalgia for a hypothetical past - the one where his parents had lived, Sirius had escaped for _him_ , Hagrid had taken him in as he’d done his brother Grawp - had ruled his very being. Maybe if Dumbledore had proven courageous, Voldemort less wrathful, Harry could have found his peace (given a couple of years, of course). Que serra, serra however. _‘Mine is not the world nor the ocean to conquer. So I dive beneath the wave and whisper this curse away.’_

Funny how imminent death brought out the poet in Harry. Honestly, if you’d told his ten year old self he’d have these kinds of thoughts, he’d have stared at you in incomprehensible horror.

He would remember this scent, Harry decided. Spring had brought life to the Forest. Wild flowers sent their presence his way, leaves were growing really fast (wasn’t it just winter?) and all over, traces of new life could be found. Even now with all the people who’d come and gone and the spellfire that had accompanied them, nests and birds and little spiders and threstral spawn and mice and squirrels thought they could hide from the slaughter better than they actually could.

_‘Fitting that it started in autumn,’_ he further mused, _‘and that it shall end in spring. Symbolic even.’_

“Avada Kedavra”, Voldemort cast several minutes later.

Harry accepted the green flash of light in full acceptance.

Senses fade out. One blink and then nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Everything.

In a burst that crushes through reality, infinity awakens. Full decompression of the mind takes place. Ordered chaos bounds and rushes, crystallizes into familiar patterns. Power folds into space folds into time grows into reality and awakens the mind and rushes through all of eternity and infinity until the greatest treasure of the universe blossoms into being: half of infinity is still infinite and what is the soul but the boundless compressed into a nutshell.

An emperor dreams that he’s a butterfly dreaming that he’s human.

A king nurtures a tree into a world, the world into realms.

Life sparks and shines and shatters and falls.

Harry opens his eyes.

Opens his eyes to a monumental building, an opera house stretching so far the eye can see. Austrian architecture bleaks in comparison.

“Good, you’re here,” a man says to Harry.

Harry stares. The wizard’s bald head doesn’t ring a bell, but his outfit does.

“Are you Barnabas?” the young man asks.

The wizard grins in delight. “So I am still remembered!”

“It’s not everyday,” Harry acknowledges, “that trolls perform the Swan Lake in tutu.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also known as: Harry goes to the opera with Barnabas the Barmy, goes back to living afterwards and wakes up in a mausoleum together with Voldemort. Turns out 80 years have passed and their "special connection" has evolved into a tragedy of soulmated enemies. Understandably so, both Voldemort and Harry are horrified of this perversion. But the world's kind of fucked by the Muggles too, so it's quite relative really.


	6. The Soaring Wind 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort doesn't make it to Hogwarts in 1991. This has consequences for Harry and his development.

### one

The forest lived more at night time than during the day, Voldemort knew by now. The owls flew out of their nests, the wolves hunted, the bears sought one another for copulation.

As a bodiless spirit who’d found himself adrift in the world, the forest served as an excellent anchor to piece himself together again. Many a full moon had passed before he remembered his origin as a human, causing his integration into a ferocious yew tree to fall apart seamlessly.

Even longer still until he could trace out his name of birth with fir cones, in full possession of a squirrel as he was back then, and rearrange the cone letters into his ascended name.

Years passed as he ascended nature’s evolutionary ladder and gained more and more awareness.

Then one summer morning, the spirit known as Voldemort rejoiced.

Walking through the darker paths of the forest was a human. A human that carried a wand, the first to pass since Voldemort’s unfortunate confrontation with the Potters.

Currently in the form of a feral dog, a bastard breed by all accounts, Voldemort waited until the person passed further into the shadows before pouncing right at the wandholder.

Who stunned his form right away. “There you are, mali duh!” the witch exclaimed. “I suspected an evil spirit to haunt these forests.” She brandished her wand as Voldemort rose his spirit out of the dog, a black mist drifting at speed towards the witch in question.

Ten years after falling victim to a miscalculation, Voldemort once more found himself confronted with his hubris.

The black mist that was his essence followed the direction of the witch’s wand straight into an enchanted bottle.

With another flick, the bottle’s cap flipped back on, leaving only the rotting corpse of the possessed dog behind as a sign of passage.

The witch nodded to the bottle. “Don’t worry, mali duh. Stara Zdenka will release you soon. Far from here, of course, but Zdenka respects the right to survive. You’ll just not be doing it near my grandchildren.”

 _“One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.”_ Friedrich Nietzsche


	7. The Soaring Wind 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort doesn't make it to Hogwarts in 1991. This has consequences for Harry and his development.

### two

At first he blamed it on the window’s bars and the twenty locks securing the room from the outside.

Then, finally, he had to admit to the fact that his relatives simply abhorred his existence.

And maybe other people too.

His friends hadn’t written.

Nobody had come knocking on the door.

His trunk was locked away.

His wand hopefully not snapped.

His owl agitated, yet equally caught in her cage. Sometimes, he thought she’d start to hate him too. Only sometimes. She saw his condition too, of course. It helped.

After several weeks, when his newfound hope and ideals of friendship had withered, even the idea of having to see him appalled them.

They’d bought him diapers to wear. Forewent a bucket of water for wet wipes. Accepted his garbage in plastic bags.

He didn’t know what they tried to accomplish. Daren’t ask, lest he’d give them ideas.

He tried to keep track of the days, but lost track after what he thought would have been his birthday.

It felt like forever.

An old, familiar forever.

Sometimes, he wondered how he’d fallen for it the year before.

A world that turns its back on a babe will certainly not linger long on a preteen. Not when there are books and rumours to fill the absence.

Harry Potter had realized this years before.

Still believed in daydreams.

Persistence became difficult to uphold.

-–

Forever lasted for almost two full moons and a half.

Then the doorbell had rung. Not that peculiar.

A deep voice had demanded something.

His aunt had replied, her special blend of haughty disdain and spite clear, even when the words weren’t.

He’d only registered the happenings then, vaguely.

In his mind, he was forever aflight. Flitting through the forest, over lakes and rivers, in and out of valleys, soaring over mountains. The further he flew, the more distance he’d manage to what his reality consisted of.

So it was perhaps a surprise when footsteps - a lighter tread than the steps usually bore - indicated movement upwards. Even more surprising when lock after lock was turned and the door, unfamiliar in its purpose by now, opened.

His eyes immediately went to the intruder. Couldn’t quite comprehend what he saw.

In his room, an ascendance turned prison, stood not his friend Hagrid, nor his head of house, let alone the headmaster or some kind of Muggle authority.

Before him stood Snape, his Potions professor.

“P-” He coughed; had but whispered for weeks. “Professor.”

The man took him in. And the room.

“Mr Potter,” the man greeted neutrally. “Holidays are over. The school year has begun.”

The boy looked down at himself. His clothes weren’t the cleanest, but he’d still insisted on dressing every day. The thing about hopelessness is that it only wears you down when you let it wear you down. So even though he’d given up on his ideals - he hadn’t given up on his principles. His sense of self.

“I’m afraid I haven’t yet received my letter,” Harry replied. That was, in the end, the good thing about Snape. He knew what buttons to push; he also apparently knew when not to push them.

The man nodded. “I do not have one with me, but I remember well enough.”

Harry stood upright from where he’d been seated on the bed, wobbled a bit to find his balance and immediately went for Hedwig’s cage.

Snape didn’t say anything outright, but he was still observing.

“My trunk is downstairs,” he said in explanation.

It was surreal to leave the bedroom - he’d quite forgotten where exactly he’d been staying.

They descended the stairs. Harry made his way to the cupboard where his trunk had been placed. As soon as he’d dragged it out, he took note of the damaged, yet unbroken lock. His mere touch clicked it open and he sighed in relief. There, right on top of his invisibility cloak, laid his wand.

“Put on some proper clothes,” Snape commanded and turned around.

Harry nervously searched for a robe and a regular cloak, discarding his secondhand Muggle clothing immediately. He placed his wand inside the cloak’s inner pocket and closed the lid of his trunk.

Snape turned around on hearing the noise, took out his wand and tapped the trunk once, causing it to shrink to the size of a cigarette box.

Harry decided not to voice his questions, even though he hadn’t known you could cast without speaking.

“You have the key to your vault, I hope,” the professor stated.

Harry nodded, his hand immediately ghosting to the necklace chain onto which he’d attached his key.

“Good,” Snape commented. “Then it is time we left.” The man had a glance about the corridor. “It is considered impolite to depart a wizard’s abode in this fashion,” he explained while motioning Harry to step closer.

The professor clasped a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, the world narrowed down. A horrible squeezing sensation overcame Harry. He felt himself stretch from one end of the world right up to the other. A squeeze became a push and before he knew it, they were standing in Diagon Alley.

Snape already started walking in the direction of the bank before Harry had recovered from the experience.

“What-what was that called?” Harry asked, then amended: “Sir?”

Snape glanced to the side. “Apparition. You will learn it in your sixth year at Hogwarts.”

Gringotts wasn’t all that different than the year before - though he was surprised at the small amount of people waiting in line.

“Sir?” Harry tried.

“Potter.”

“What date is it?” he asked.

“The Third of September. Thursday.”

He’d missed the train, the opening feast and likely his first day of class.

It was strange to descend into the vaults accompanied by his Potions professor. The route was the same, yet the mood was a stark opposite. The year before, he’d been gleeful with joy and Hagrid nauseous from the beginning.

The joy of a roller coaster was absent now - he knew where his adventure could very well end up this time. Snape himself was stoic.

As he climbed out of the cart at his vault, he was surprised to find Snape following in.

If Ron and Hermione would have seen it, their suspicion would have arisen at once. Harry hardly doubted the man was after his gold.

While he was filling his bag with galleons and sickles, he felt rather then saw Snape look at the content of his vault.

“At least your father was good for something,” the man half-sneered. “Double the amount you’ve taken already. You are going to need it.”

Harry looked back curiously at the man, but didn’t receive a reply.

His shopping was done in a quick and efficient manner. They entered a shop, Snape picked what Harry presumed to be the required material, Harry paid the bill and they stored the purchases in his trunk and went on the next shop.

It was in the bookshop that they lingered longer and Harry was given an idea of why he needed the additional funds. This Lockhart’s books were expensive!

Surrounded by books, unhindered by fellow customers, Harry felt comfortable enough to ask the question he’d had for a while now.

“Sir?” he asked. “How come it is you who came to find me?”

“We are all chained by our past, Potter,” Snape said. Then added, as teachers are wont to do, follow-up wisdom: “The trick is to foresee the choices upon us before that choice is taken from us.”

They walked a bit further into the aisle.

Harry fingered the minified trunk in his pocket, mystified.

“I suggest,” the man eventually continued as he beheld one of the books absent-minded and passed it onto his pupil, “that you prepare yourself more thoroughly now that you have experienced this ordeal.”

Harry accepted the book and regarded the book’s cover. In embroidered letters, it read: “The Self-Sufficient Wizard/Witch”. The drawn author’s face followed beneath, his name written in smaller letters: Newt Scamander.

It wasn’t the only book that was added to the pile, but it was the one that Harry thought was more related to his situation at home than any of the others. “A Potioneer’s Encyclopedia” was after all a predictable choice for a Potions professor. Though he did wonder at who this Nietzsche was that his collection “The Writings of the Muggle Friedrich” could be found in a wizarding shop.

The Apparition by which they’d traveled to Diagon Alley also served as the transportation that took them to Hogwarts’ outer gates.

A carriage pulled by a strange creature awaited them inside the gate.

Harry’s eyes lingered on the horse’s leathery wings.

Snape saw him looking. “Thestrals,” he offered. “Only seen by those who’ve seen somebody die in front of them.”

This knowledge stilled his curiosity. Harry knew who he’d seen die. Remembered the event as a strain coursing through his hands, strangling the addle-minded Quirrel to death.

They sat opposite one another in silence. What would have been awkward with anybody else, proved to be natural with Snape. After all, what was more awkward - sitting opposite a man in silence, or that same man seeing diapers on your desk?

Thank Merlin for English discretion.

Before they stepped out of the carriage, Snape addressed him a final time. “Finite Incantatum on your trunk will suffice. Read your books, Potter.” Then, as if it pained the man to say it: “And see that you visit Mme Pomfrey soon.”

The castle was starting to have lunch when he slunk into the Great Hall. He quietly found his way at Gryffindor’s table, hoping nobody would make a fuss.

Of course Ron saw him immediately and called him out.

“Harry!” the boy shouted in delight. “Where have you been, mate?”

Harry swallowed through his lingering anxiety and decided for discretion. “Hi Ron,” he greeted his… friend? Acquaintance? “I er.. couldn’t make it to the train. Traffic jam.”

“Truffle jam?” Ron mused. “Never had it. Was it any good?”

Harry looked at the boy, perplexed.

“I bet it wasn’t,” Ron decided. “You’re still looking pale.” He took a bite from a sausage and continued (in mid-chew): “Anyway, good to have you back! Say, did you receive any of my owls?”

Ron had written?

“I guess you didn’t. That bloody Errol,” the boy mumbled.

Harry didn’t quite know how it happened, but by the time McGonagall passed by and handed him his schedule with a disapproving frown, he had people coming up to him, telling him: “I had truffles too, once. Disgusting. Good to see you.”

He was completely baffled by it all. Couldn’t understand it. Such a stark contrast to what his life had been like during the summer months. People didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t immediately reply, nor did they linger long on the convoluted explanation he’d given his one friend.

Snape, who sat at the head table and was conversing with his colleagues, obviously caught word of the rumour too. Harry caught him staring and lifting an eyebrow. Harry shrugged helplessly.

Hermione hugged him when she saw him - surprising him equally so. Then she said: “Honestly Harry, food poisoning isn’t a reason to be so dramatic.”

And in the depth of his heart, he resigned himself to the knowledge that Harry Potter was a mirage people did not want to let go. So he kept his secrets to himself.

_“We are all chained by our past. The trick is to foresee the choices upon us before that choice is taken from us.”_

Snape’s words lingered long in his mind.

And in reading Scamander’s book, a semi-biographical account of the man’s life and accomplishments, a pathway, a way out, started to appear for Harry.

It wasn’t concrete.

There were lots of things to do before he could reach the point.

Maybe he still was too young.

Perchance he could use a helping hand from time to time.

But an idea blossomed into an ideal and evolved.

 _“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life.”_ Friedrich Nietzsche


	8. The Soaring Wind 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort doesn't make it to Hogwarts in 1991. This has consequences for Harry and his development.  
> 3 of 6

### three

He helped Hermione as much as he could with the Polyjuice Potion.

Kind of doubted it was worth the effort, but was curious nonetheless.

 _Heir of Slytherin_ was as much a moniker as _Boy-Who-Lived_ , after all.

And Harry really didn’t like the way Malfoy trotted around, the way he looked down upon a good portion of Hogwarts’ inhabitants.

It was the kind of look Petunia often send his way.

So he bought the ingredients the potion required (a small risk as you had to pay in advance by owl), along with a myriad of other ingredients to mask the purchase. (Polyjuice, it seemed, was a regulated substance.)

And he helped with the brewing. Not because it was too complicated for Hermione, but simply because it was a lot of work and he’d come to realize there was something to be said for the discipline. Potions changed, healed, petrified, cursed, transformed, destroyed.

Potions, it turned out, had unforeseen consequences when ingested incorrectly.

Bulstrode’s hair had been a Kneazle’s. Hermione turned into a catgirl combination that required Mme Pomfrey’s skills to reverse.

Harry’s hair turned out to be of somebody they didn’t know at all..

It was the most liberating experience he’d had since finding out he was a famous wizard.

He didn’t know the boy by name. Didn’t quite understand how Goyle would have had another’s hair on his shoulder either. But walking around as somebody else? Who - due to a lack of familiarity - he could not copy, could not conform to?

It was the freedom he desired. All it missed was a broomflight.

Completely wrecked their plan involving Malfoy, of course.

As he’d been the one paying for the ingredients and helped with the brewing, he kept the remaining Polyjuice. Kept it and used it, once it became clear that talking to snakes wasn’t, as it turns out, a natural phenomena.

In his own body, he felt constrained by his fellow students’ stares and scrutiny. Felt the awkwardness of his clothes that fit yet did not fit anymore.

He never took a long dose of the potion, knowing that the more time he spent as someone else, the more chance existed that he’d be caught. Ten minutes, twenty minutes at most. Enough time to shed the weight of expectations, short enough nobody would come looking for him.

It was during his seventh escapade as that same strange boy, using the last of what remained, that his secret wore out.

He’d been walking through the corridors of the dungeons in between classes, alone, when out of the blue a spell impacted from behind and he blacked out. When he awoke, he found himself bound in ropes and staring at the face he’d been ‘wearing’.

“Of all the people I suspected,” the boy said, “I wouldn’t have suspected a little snake like you, Potter.”

Harry briefly shut his eyes, though braced himself for the confrontation taking place. He’d known the risks, couldn’t quite resist temptation. Now he was going to get burned. He only hoped nobody else would get involved.

 _Thank Merlin for small favours she’s petrified_ , he thought, _Hermione would be so furious_.

The other boy was right in front of him, grasping his head and staring in his eyes. He’d not known the eyes held a blue hue over their silver irises. “What was it you were trying to accomplish?” the boy demanded. “Trying to get me a detention? Snog my girlfriend?”

How could he ever explain? Realizing he’d still been looking in the other’s eyes, he blushed - especially at the girlfriend comment - and looked downwards.

“Oh.” The boy obviously misinterpreted his look. “So you liked to be inside of me, huh?” A form of egoistic pride came over the boy.

Harry glanced away. Like any interaction with an unknown person, this conversation was turning out rather bizarre. Because if he understood it right, if he said the wrong thing now, the other boy wouldn’t be mad for him using his body with Polyjuice, but for insulting his “good looks”.

“Obviously, you’re quite enamored with my admittedly perfect body,” the boy continued. “This is what, the fourth time you’ve been using my body?”

Harry blushed deeper.

“More than that?” the boy said in horrific realization. “You little wanker.”

“I…” Harry started saying, but still didn’t know what to say. “I just couldn’t…”

“Resist. Yeah, I bloody well understood that,” the boy said, huffing now. “I just should report you to Snape and be done with this.”

Harry’s eyes widened in panic. “No! Not Snape!” Then he whispered, acknowledging his defeat in this situation. “I’ll do… I’ll do anything. Just don’t tell Snape.”

A dark, secretly excited gleam entered the other boy then. “Anything, you say?”

Harry swallowed worriedly, wondering what he’d agreed to do now. Nevertheless, he gave a small nod.

The boy let go of his grasp on Harry’s head and seemed to contemplate his options. “Well, it’s hardly fair,” he said, seemingly convincing himself, “that you had to have all that fun with my body, when I won’t even get to see you punished for it.” A brief pause. “If I let go of the ropes, you’re not going to run, are you?”

Harry shook his head quickly.

“Well, there’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time now,” the boy said and released the ropes as promised. Instead of preparing to cast a curse, as Harry had expected would be the price he’d pay, the other boy started unbuttoning his robe. If possible, Harry’s widened even more than before.

“Now, I’m not a poofter like you are,” the boy justified himself. Harry’s expression warred with what was said, but he didn’t dare speak up. “But despite what my girlfriend thinks, my wand does need polishing from time to time.”

Harry didn’t think he’d ever blushed this much in such a short time.

Then the boy stood before him, naked, and commanded: “On your knees, Potter. Worship me.”

Hesitantly, Harry shifted forwards, thought about all of the wild stories he’d heard, all the fantasies whispered by the boys in his dorm during the night, and resigned himself to this moment, to this submission.

-–

The boy left after he’d fully had his fun.

Harry had cleaned himself up, thoroughly humiliated in a way he couldn’t express in words, and retreated to his dormitory where he curled up in bed and thought of the wind soaring through the Highlands.

He coped the way his relatives had taught him: by ignoring what happened, pushing the event to the back of his mind. It lingered of course, from time to time, when he accidentally glimpsed the boy across the Great Hall, when he sometimes looked at himself in the mirror and couldn’t match what he knew with what he saw or even in his half-sleep, moments before wakening.

Weeks later, guided by the Sorting Hat and Fawkes the phoenix, reality reasserted itself. Sometimes there is no way out other than to yield. To yield is however no forgone conclusion.

So he resisted. Tom Riddle’s charm. Ginny Weasley’s death. The basilisk’s hunt. He fought. He won. He almost died. He ascended from the Chamber of Secrets wounded, but victorious.

 _Two years a wizard_ , Harry grumbled darkly to himself on the train out of Scotland, _two murders to my name_. For he made no illusions about himself anymore, not about the rather dark deeds he’d done.

Everybody knew Quirrel had been mauled to death by a Cerberus. Nobody knew about the Stone trapped inside Harry’s trunk. Just as everybody assumed about the basilisk, but nobody quite suspected about Tom Riddle.

The Headmaster, Harry had the feeling, might have suspected. The man did not confront him about the end result, seemingly satisfied he could wrap up the year and mystery.

“ _The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself_.” Friedrich Nietzsche


	9. The Soaring Wind 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort doesn't make it to Hogwarts in 1991. This has consequences for Harry and his development.  
> 4 of 6

### four

Harry returned to the Dursleys.

After the year before, after all that Snape implied and had him read, he still returned. They didn’t pick him up at the station. He rode the train down to Greater Whining, then walked the three miles into Little Whining.

He wasn’t planning on staying the entire summer.

He told them as much the minute they revealed Marge Dursley would be visiting later on.

He wasn’t yet in a position to break away from them completely. Too young to master the necessary magic. Too uncertain of the legal limits. Newt Scamander had already passed his O.W.L.s and attained the age of seventeen before he’d been cast out of Hogwarts and started on his journeys. By comparison, Harry still had several years to lay low.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t prepare. Couldn’t protect himself.

Percy Weasley took some time to persuade, what with his father being the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, but Harry had him spell his trunk to be permanently shrinkable.

The wandholster Snape had selected needed magic to be undone.

Unhandy, because Harry still had to wash himself, but infinitely safer than having everything locked away by his relatives.

These precautions combined with a renewed self-confidence; you don’t get away with what amounts to murder and slaughter without the knowledge that you had and might as well could do so again. So it was that when Vernon looked at him menacingly, Harry had but imagine the blinded basilisk to put things in perspective.

“I can’t leave you completely,” Harry had told his aunt and uncle. “Not without arousing suspicion. But I’m not staying around for Marge’s visit. I don’t think you want me here for that either.”

His uncle grunted, not satisfied in not being the party to make this decision, but agreeing with the sentiment nonetheless.

Aunt Petunia just scrutinized him, as if she was trying to divine a deeper truth.

“So I’ll only be staying until I’ve received my school letter or until Marge’s arrival,” Harry offered them. “Whichever comes first. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if we just went our separate ways.” He looked about the corridor, into the living room and the kitchen, past his old cupboard. “You’ve never wanted me to be a part of your family,” he continued softly. “I… can respect that.” He looked down at himself, then back up. Looking into people’s eyes, he found, really forced a confrontation looking sideways would always evade. “You don’t like magic. You don’t like me. You don’t like my presence. I understand that.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Circumstances forced this situation between us. I can’t change that yet. People wouldn’t take me seriously on my own. People would ask you questions about me you couldn’t easily answer.”

Uncle Vernon grunted once more. “Seems like you’re finally thinking about the impact your freakishness has on decent people like us.”

Aunt Petunia surprised him. “What happened to you, boy?” she demanded. It was difficult to ascertain whether she did so out of worry or suspicion. “You were far more subdued last year.”

Harry glanced at his hands in memory. “Last year,” he replied, “I had just killed a man because he attacked me.” Vernon was looking at his hands with a renewed sense of fear and loathing. “This year,” he continued, “I came to terms with what I had to do. And had to defend myself again.”

Obviously, his uncle and aunt took the hint for what it was, for his uncle only asked: “When will this letter come about?”

Harry shrugged. “In a week or three, I think?”

His uncle nodded, then motioned for Harry to leave the parlour. “Right then, we’ll just be leaving you to settle in then.” The man grabbed Petunia’s hand. “We’re taking Dudley out to a restaurant, we’d appreciate it if you kept the funny business to your room.”

Harry nodded and ascended the stairs.

His uncle and aunt were horrible people. But in their desire to be as normal as a Muggle could be, they were also terribly predictable.


	10. The Soaring Wind 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort doesn't make it to Hogwarts in 1991. This has consequences for Harry and his development.  
> 5 of 6

### five

The letter came of course on the same day Aunt Marge was due to arrive. So he packed up his belongings, minimized his trunk and left for the railway station in Greater Whining. People looked curious at him, but minded their business, obviously coming to some conclusion that satisfied their morning routine.

The train arrived in London’s Victoria station, which suited Harry just fine. Instead of heading into the underground and get lost in the myriad destinations, Harry walked and navigated his way through the streets. He roughly knew which direction to walk, having studied the city map present in the Dursley household.

He took a couple of detours by mistake, one of which brought him right in front of Buckingham Palace, through St James Park and onto Trafalgar Square where he mistakenly walked into Covent Garden. He didn’t mind the diversion.

Part of the journey, Newt’s writing had taught Harry, is to deviate and familiarize oneself with the oddities of life. Which in his current context meant he understood why there were so many record stores on his path. Music records offered expression for those without the talent or education. The skate culture, which Dudley’s gang was showing an interest in, he didn’t immediately get. Then again, Harry was more of a broomstick type of guy.

Eventually, he did find himself in front of the Leaky Cauldron.

Looking at the dinghy facade felt nostalgic. The last time he’d been there, Hagrid had been with him.

Warily, he opened the door, not knowing what to expect.

The pub wasn’t as full as it had been the first time he’d visited it. Some of the patrons were sitting at the counter, drinking their beer. Others were seated in couches and chairs all over the pub, with gaps in-between and the Daily Prophet’s broadsheet form hiding the faces of wizards and witches alike.

Some of the people looked at the door when it opened. As it was, he’d prepared well in advance. Robes might get you looked at strangely in a small town like Little Whining, but in London proper that was a relative event. Especially, Harry figured, near a place like Covent Garden with all its theatre and subculture.

So while the Muggle entrance would garner attention, the absence of Hagrid’s presence and the fact he wore his robe dismissed him immediately from people’s attention span.

Tom the bartender greeted him generically nonetheless, ever the mindful host. “Good afternoon, lad. Hogwarts’ letter came in then?”

Harry nodded, taking care not to upset his hair too much so his scar stayed somewhat hidden.

“Well then, you just go on to the back. You remember the pattern?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry affirmed quietly. “Thank you. Have a nice day!”

“You too, lad, you too,” the man said.

As Harry passed the restroom and stepped into the courtyard in the back, he heard the man say to one of the parrons: “Polite boy, that one. Reckon he’s a Ravenclaw, don’t you?”

Harry exhaled the brief anxiety that had started to cole over him - he really really didn’t want to be recognised. Actors, musicians and other famous people handled that all the time, but then they had chosen the carreer and got their pay from their recognition. No reason for Harry Potter to cultivate a public personality, no reason at all. Let the people think his existence a curiosity and a miracle from the past.

Despite his reassurance to the bartender, it did take five tries for Harry to establish the correct pattern. He thought he’d remembered his passage with Hagrid with crystal clarity, but apparently that was an overestimation of his ability to remember.

‘ _Memory kind of jumbles up into a selective narrative interspiced with traces of accuracy, doesn’t it?_ ’ he considered to himself. ‘ _That was really profound of me. I should have a sundae to congratulate myself._ ’

As he walked into Diagon Alley for the third time in his life, he paced himself a bit more slowly. This was in truth the first time he got to experience the wizarding world alone. Not rushed from place to place like his visit with Snape had been, nor as overwhelmed as he’d been with Hagrid.

The shops hadn’t changed all that much, he thought. There was Ollivander’s and there was the Quidditch shop and yes, that seemed to be Hedwig sleeping on a lantern post opposite the Magical Menagery.

Harry looked briefly around himself, then drew his money pouch out of his pocket and discretely checked its content. There were far more Knuts and Sickles than he’d like, but he did think he had sufficient Galleons not to visit Gringotts immediately.

So he wandered along the Alley, observing the variety, while not expressly stopping and staring at everything. Today was after all the first day of many, not the only day, let alone the last.

At long last he found what he’d been looking for to the left of Gringotts’ attention-grabbing building. Yonder Pass, where three inns and hostels hid amongst townhouses.

He’d found out about its existence by advertisement made in _Teen Witch Weekly_ , strangely enough. _Quidditch Weekly_ , the ‘male’ equivalent only featured sport and broom-related ads.

He had to look closely at the signs, because they were sort of alike, but he eventually distinguished _The Kneazle Inn_ from the _The Needle Inn_.

He went to the first of course. The second was the secret headquarters of wizarding Britain’s knitting club. Merlin knew what kind of decrepit old ladies frequented the place, considering the rumoured age of some witches and wizards.

The Kneazle Inn had less guests than The Leaky Cauldron at the moment, for which Harry was quite grateful.

He walked up to the counter and addressed the woman ordering a cabinet beneath said counter. She had short blond-greyish hair.

“Excuse me, Miss?” He asked.

His voice must’ve startled the woman, for she abruptly stood up, dropping a jar of herbs or tea in the process.

“Hi there!” She greeted brightly. “How can I help?”

Harry smiled that polite smile some people did after greeting. “I er… sent my owl a couple of days ago to make a reservation?”

The woman was already leafing through a ledger by the time he finished talking.

“For two weeks, right?” She asked, taking a quill from her right and dipping it in a small ink well.

“That’s right,” he said, relieved. “In the name of Harry James.”

The woman hummed in agreement as she read the notification in the ledger and comparing it with something Harry couldn’t see. “That’s right. Now, you wrote that you wanted to rent a bed, so that you’d stay in one of the dormitories.”

Harry nodded. “That’s correct, Ma’ame.”

“Alright, I don’t see any issue for your first week, but I do have a group coming in then who have booked all the dormitories with six and four beds as well as the private rooms… There’s room in a dormitory for two, but that’s going to cost you six Sickles a night more. Will that be a problem?”

“That’s not a problem,” he affirmed.

“Alright then,” she said. “If you can give me a deposit of five Galleons now, I’ll give you a brief tour of the place and let you get settled in.”

And just like that, Harry had a new temporary home.

The Kneazle Inn apparently did cater mostly to witches, for that was who he encountered most of the time in the dorm, hallways and common rooms.

Rachel, who owned and managed the inn, looked like she could be Hooch’s aunt, but actually behaved much like Sprout probably did towards the Hufflepuffs. Spliff and Copper were the two house-elfs who did most of the chores around the place. Harry only spotted them briefly in passing. He nevertheless offered them polite smiles each time he did. In some parallel universe, Harry imagined, his life probably could have been theirs.

Still, staying in the inn was a completely different experience. There were no rules or expectations like there were at Hogwarts, nor were people as tense or wary as they were in Little Whining.

People just were. Just arriving, leaving, resting their legs after walking all day. They read magazines, books, played gobstones to pass the time.

One such night Harry was jotting down his thoughts and ideas in a notebook he’d bought, while partially reading through Scamander’s book, when a shadow fell over the page.

“Great man, Scamander,” a woman said. Harry looked up. The shadow across his page focused into a woman dressed in an oddly patterned robe.

Harry recognized her. She’d arrived the morning before and had a bed in his old dormitory.

The woman gave him a warm smile. “I am seeing him tomorrow,” she said. “It is the reason I have travelled to this country.”

Harry looked at his book, then again at the woman. “Scamander?” he said curiously. “You are seeing him tomorrow?”

The woman nodded.

“Did you come a long way then?” he asked. In the magical world, where distance and physical borders were less of an issue, you couldn’t simply presume the origin of people.

“I have travelled a long way, yes,” the woman replied.

He nodded to show he’d heard her, then continued scribbling.

“Are you studying?” the woman eventually asked.

Harry looked at what he’d written and - as he flipped back a couple of pages - drawn. “You might call it studying,” he said, “but it’s more that I want to make something and I’m trying to work out whether it will be feasable.”

The woman nodded as if she understood. “You are young to be making things,” she commented. “Good.”

He shrugged.

“You want to travel the world like Newt Scamander? Discover new beasts?”

Harry frowned slightly, then looked at her. “I… never thought about travelling the world,” he admitted. “I’m working on something like Mr Scamander’s suitcase.”

The woman hmmed thoughtfully. “If you want, I can give him a drawing of your works tomorrow?”

Harry looked at the page he’d been working on, embarrassed all of a sudden. “That’s er… very kind of you, ma’ame, but I don’t think my idea is presentable yet.”

The conversation felt silent then, the woman taking out a magazine to read whilst Harry continued his trail of thought.

He couldn’t quite let go of his curiosity however. “Why are you seeing Mr Scamander, if I may ask, Ma’ame?”

The woman looked at him considerly for a moment, as if not quite seeing _him_.

“Years ago,” she revealed, “Mr Scamander helped my people tremendously when an ashwinder and nundu fought over territory.”

Harry listened attentively, curious for details about this man that was to the old wizarding world what the new wizarding world wanted him to be - a talented, heroic individual. (Harry knew himself better of course, but the world didn’t as of yet.)

“We have learned a lot since that time,” she continued, “and implemented many of Mr Scamander’s propositions. Recently however, we are finding too much Muggle villages slaughtered and deceased.” She paused as if to honour the loss of life. “We have our suspicions, but would like Mr Scamander’s insight.” She looked him in the eye then. “As magicians, we must at the least acknowledge our responsibility to the wider world and the balance our world keeps in protection of and from the Muggle world.”

Harry didn’t quite know what to say to that. It was, in a sense, the wisest and most _adult_ statement he’d thus far heard from anybody.

The woman smiled at him then, as if she knew he’d listened and that her words had registered. “You should come visit my country when you are older, Mr Potter.”

The sudden exclamation caused him to panic briefly. “How-how did you know?” He stumbled out.

“Even in my country your story is told,” she revealed. “More quietly than here, I imagine, but it is still told.”

He looked about himself, suddenly half wary, half-conscious of the fact that people were aware of his presence. Noticed him even when he did not notice them.

“Do not worry, Mr Potter,” she smiled at him in assurance. “You may be part of a story, as everybody is a part of their story. But you are more than a story. Beyond expectation and definition, you are most definitely yourself.” She went ad far as to lay her hand on his knee. “Rejoice! You are more than you could be, more than you were, more than you are.”

Her words, like Snape’s the year before, lingered long after their expression. They were not quite compatible, yet nevertheless equally true. It was, Harry was discovering, the truth about most things. Opposite, yet complementary.


	11. The Soaring Wind 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort doesn't make it to Hogwarts in 1991. This has consequences for Harry and his development.  
> 6 of 6.

### six

After his stay at the Kneazle Inn in London, Harry found himself boarding the night train to Edinburgh. It was perhaps an odd choice for somebody going to boarding school in Scotland to go ‘on holiday’ there as well. Hogwarts was an isolated environment however, surrounded by the Forbidden Forest, the lake and the mountains. He knew Hogsmeade was the village bordering the castle that - according what he’d picked up from the older years - served as a tight knit community of wizards and witches, equivalent to the wizarding quarter in London in size and variety. Having observed the wizarding world’s coming and going in Diagon Alley however, he had the rather unnerving suspicion that Greater Whining and its villages held the same population that wizarding Britain had in its entirety.

Before reading about Scamander’s adventures and having to look at a map of the world to link names with places, Harry never would have started thinking about geography and _statistics_. Learning that Luxembourg was home to the largest magical animal reserve of Europe, equal to half of France, does mess with one’s perception.

He didn’t stay in Edinburgh long though: he had quite enough of urban life from hanging around London. So instead he took the train further in land, into the Cairngorms national park. Popular with the Muggles, but littered with enclaves of Muggleborns and half-bloods, he found out.

He’d been walking a trail, just taking in the scenery, when his eyes spotted a peculiar collection of wooden roofs situated right in the middle of the forest below his trail. Curious, he’d veered off the path.

There was a gate and a fence separating the national park from the community. There was a key opening, but as he tried the handle, Harry felt the stirring of magic coming to life. There wasn’t a visible effect, like the entrance to Diagon Alley or Platform 9 3/4, rather a brief sensation washing over him followed by an audible click.

Of course he couldn’t help himself: he walked through the gate before he could even second guess himself.

“Close the gate behind ye, lad,” a deep voice said to him.

Harry twisted around to find the stone statue of a cairn terrier behind him hinting at the gate in question.

“Oh, right,” Harry nodded and made sure the gate clicked. “Thanks,” he added, suddenly confused why he was thanking an animated statue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where this story stalled.  
> Plotwise the following would have happened or had happened:  
> * Harry gets involved with one of the Durmstrang guys, who breaks it off at the end of the year;  
> * Harry develops his own variant of Newt Scamander's suitcase.  
> * Harry graduates Hogwarts without a whisper of Voldemort and Death Eater activity.  
> * Dumbledore dies of natural(?) causes - nobody really knows.  
> * Harry looks up his former boyfriend, who's now happily married to a witch.  
> * Nagini finds Harry and asks/begs him to come and help her wizard Voldemort.  
> * Nagini gets rid of her bloodcurse with Voldemort's help.  
> * The three of them happen to be quite close to Latveria when Avengers 2 happens. They're not happy campers too when it turns out that in the mean-time, the Aether having been active in the UK (Thor 2) caused most of the wizarding world to be wiped out.  
> * Nagini apprenticed to the Ancient One in order to get rid of her bloodcurse, but went away when she got stuck permanently in her snake-form.  
> * Voldemort saved Nagini from certain death during a winter in the sixties in the Urals.  
> \---  
> Yes, I've found a way to explain Nagini-being-a-human-and-older-than-Voldemort in a way that integrates with the books. Yes, it took integrating the MCU to explain it.


	12. Curiosity killed the cat (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's curiosity has unforeseen consequences during Voldemort's resurrection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly why this 'story' has an Explicit warning and the non-con tags.  
> 'Dark magic' is a euphemism for sexual magic.

### Curiosity killed the cat

He felt the blood drip slowly down his hands from the wound on his forearm. There wasn’t a metronome to accompany his heartbeat, nor a pulse that dictated a spurt. Instead, a steady fizzling stream pooled downwards, following the lines on the palm of his hand, trickling further down to his finger tips where the blood finally parted from his body and splashed onto the statue that held him in place.

His glasses fogged up a bit from the steam rising from the cauldron that produced Voldemort’s rebirth.

He nonetheless witnessed the way Wormtail cut off his hand. The hesitation that plagued the man as he placed the blade, trying to find the right spot. The sudden downwards movement that parted flesh and bones. The splash of the hand as it mingled into the fiendish concoction inside the cauldron.

Harry reflexively swallowed. Thought about shutting his eyes so as to not see what took place. The heat of the fire, simmering right below his feet where the cauldron rested, forced his attention to the procedure taking place.

He understood why Wormtail arranged everything close to each other, the same way one orders prepared ingredients in Potions according to the order they had be added, within grabbing distance of the cauldron.

 _‘Flesh of the servant,_ _You will revive your Master!’_

The words triggered an explosion of light and steam greater than before. Harry instinctively shifted his head to the side, before slowly reversing the action. The moisture, the heat and the sudden movement caused his glasses to fall off and tumble onto the earth.

Without his glasses, Harry’s perspective shifted from the entire graveyard to two yards in front of him. He’d always thought it ironic that he was such an excellent Seeker despite being farsighted, but at the same time relished the dichotomy.

Now he found his eyes drawn to the form standing naked inside the cauldron.

Voldemort didn’t have a nose.

Harry found himself disturbed by the man’s face. Didn’t want to trigger an early confrontation by gazing into the man’s eyes. Didn’t want to linger on the oddity of his enemy’s head and shifted his gaze downwards. _‘At least he has nipples’,_ he thought to himself. _‘And a belly button.’_

Then his mind kind of froze, because he’d allowed his gaze to wander too far.

 _‘Voldemort has a cock.’_ Flashed through his mind. His eyes widened a bit. _‘It’s a lot bigger than mine’,_ followed the immediate comparison. Somehow, through the events of his second year, having bested Tom Riddle and slaughtered the basilisk, mixed in with memories of Quirrel and the baby-like form Voldemort had had before this ritual, Harry had adopted the impression that his conquests trumped the experience and reputation. Cherished the notion that he was, while young and not fully developed, an equal of sorts to You-Know-Who.

Seeing Voldemort’s erect cock banished the notion inside of him. _‘I’m never going to grow that big’_ , he thought. And felt betrayed by himself when he noticed that somehow, seeing _that_ stirred something deep inside of him, in his nether regions. When a black robe fell over the sight, a tiny whimper betrayed his traitorous thoughts. _‘Shit! I wouldn’t have made that noise if I wasn’t so tired!_ Harry tried to justify to himself. Then knew he couldn’t evade the confrontation any longer.

His gaze shifted slowly upwards. Voldemort stared at him with his red eyes and noiseless gob. A panicky vibration started to act up inside of Harry. _‘Bloody hell, he knows!’_ The instinct to run, to hide, to shelter in darkness, started to grip his mind, conditioned as it was by all those incidents he had with his relatives as a child.

The man smirked then as if he _knew_ what Harry had been thinking.

It really didn’t help that Voldemort’s robe was thin and entirely not humble in what it covered. Still staring into Voldemort’s eyes, he knew all too well that in the periphery of his vision, that cock still stood proudly announcing its return to the world.

 _‘Why does my mouth feel so dry?_ Harry thought to himself.

‘Harry Potter,’ the man finally whispered and took a step closer, his hand rising to Harry’s face, fingers stretching out towards the scar on his forehead. ‘The Boy-Who-Lived.’

To Harry’s great embarrassment, the moment Voldemort’s fingers touched his scar, a jolt traveled from his forehead through his head, down his spine into his genitals. The wetness he felt there… _‘It should have been pain I felt,’_ slipped through his mind half in protest.

‘Voldemort.’ Harry attempted to say formally, but couldn’t deny the way the orgasm and confusion influenced his breathing and voice.

The man seemed to find his attempt amusing.

There is no hiding amongst enemies, it seemed.

A sudden whimper coming from behind Voldemort disturbed their interaction completely.

Both their heads turned towards the origin of the noise.

Harry recognized Wormtail’s shape and remembered that the man had in fact cut off his hand minutes before.

Voldemort seemed to realize it too, for he stepped towards the man, out of Harry’s immediate perception.

Harry tried to see and hear what they were doing. He couldn’t quite understand what was said, but he saw Wormtail take a wand from his robes and hand it over to Voldemort. Voldemort did something with Wormtail’s forearm, before he seemed to do something about Wormtail’s missing hand.

Then his attempt to perceive more than he could was disrupted by a familiar hissing noise coming from below.

 _‘The snake,’_ Harry remembered, feeling a sudden fatigue settle into him. It had already been a long day, by his reckoning, and he really didn’t know what had just happened, nor what was to come.

‘Can I eat the boy?’ the snake asked of Voldemort.

‘The boy is mine, Nagini,’ the man replied and waved his wand. The statue Harry was bound to suddenly moved, allowing the ropes to fall off. ‘Guard him. If he tries to run, strangle him unconscious.’

Harry fell down from the statue on his hands and knees and felt the snake - Nagini - wrap her tail around his legs. His body twisted and turned as she coiled herself around him until all of a sudden her head was right in front of his face.

For the umpteenth time that day, Harry momentarily froze in uncertain anticipation.

‘Master’s prey,’ Nagini hissed.

Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘Hello, Nagini,’ he said softly.

She flicked her tongue across his face in excitement. ‘Master’s prey speaks,’ she said in delight.

Harry felt a shiver course through his body.

‘I don’t suppose you would let me go?’ he tried.

Nagini’s head swayed back and forth, suddenly opened her jaw wide and tried to swallow his head in one go. She held that for a couple of seconds, then let him go. Harry tried his best not to wretch - the scent coming out of her mouth had smelled like rotten rats. In the background, he heard what sounded like a parliament of owls descend onto the graveyard.

‘Prey is trying to trick Nagini,’ the snake admonished. ‘But Nagini knows now. Prey is Master’s.’

 _‘She’s more intelligent than the basilisk,’_ Harry realized then. The basilisk had been bigger, more ferocious, deadlier, but also triggered by centuries of starvation.

It didn’t give him a lot of hope.

 _‘Am I getting out of here alive?’_ he wondered.

Then Voldemort started speaking.

He wasn’t facing Harry’s direction, so his voice didn’t carry in the right direction. He only managed to catch snippets of what sounded like a speech. _‘The owls,’_ Harry acknowledged reluctantly, _‘they must have been wizards instead’._

What he did hear was incredibly disjointed. An admonishment. Something about immortality. Lost followers. Something about hardship and time passing by.

Harry tried to see more of what was going on, but his vision was blurry, his glasses still missing. He saw shapes that probably were wizards (and witches?), more than ten, maybe even as much as thirty. They surrounded Voldemort in a half circle. They stood, but seemed to keep their heads bowed?

He wished he knew more, perceived more than he could, wished he could predict what would follow. What might happen to him.

Nagini seemed to have better hearing than Harry had.

Suddenly they were moving. It was the oddest sensation he’d experienced. Her body moved them along the earth, twisted and turned and coiled, yet somehow he remained perfectly inside of her cage made of flesh.

When they were right in front of Voldemort, she uncoiled completely from him, leaving him lying face-down in front of the older man.

‘The Boy-Who-Lived they call him,’ Voldemort continued explaining to his followers. ‘The only person who managed what none have before him: to allegedly survive the Killing Curse.’

Harry wearily braced his arms to get him in an upright position. He shifted his knees so he sat on them. The next step would be standing up. He didn’t know whether that was a good idea right now.

He looked upwards, to identify Voldemort’s mood, observe the grip the man kept on his wand.

‘A hero they call him,’ Voldemort sneered. ‘Fools!’

Harry felt offended. _‘I’m not taking this’,_ he defiantly thought. The urge to stand up overwhelmed him then, so he started to move his left leg.

A flick of Voldemort’s wand forced his leg downwards and added weight to his arms, as if he was swimming fully clothed.

‘They have done their best to train him,’ Voldemort continued. Harry wondered what kind of training he’d supposedly had had. ‘To mold him into their fiction. But I have seen inside the boy’s mind. I have seen his inclinations.’ Harry blushed consciously, uncomfortable now. Here he was trying to avoid thinking about it consciously and there Voldemort went, throwing it in his face, telling it to dozens of unknown wizards and witches. His thoughts on the matter - known by the man by the way he briefly smirked in his direction - obviously didn’t deter Voldemort. ‘The curse that brought about my downfall and caused us so much grieve, that gave this significance to an otherwise ordinary boy, that marked Harry Potter in conjunction to my person, is still incomplete.’

 _‘He’s going to kill me,’_ Harry accepted then. He’d doubted it for a couple of minutes, when that strange interaction between them lingered. Now he knew the truth of it. He didn’t really want to give up - the past four years had proven to him his thirst for survival, offered him glimpses of a lust for life waiting around the corner - but he accepted his limitations. _‘No wand. No glasses. Tired. He’s a bigger dick than I am or have. Surrounded by wizarding hooligans. No way out.’_

‘Tonight,’ Voldemort continued. ‘Your Lord has return. Tonight the Boy-Who-Lived will be forgotten. Tonight you will witness the true nature of people’s heroes.’ Then the man looked down at Harry and commanded: ‘Approach, Potter.’

Harry hesitated. Couldn’t he just cast the Killing Curse? Get it over with? Then he looked at Voldemort, the Dark Lord, and knew he didn’t have it in him to defy anymore. That yielding gaze, he’d always succumbed. He shuffled on his knees until he was right in front of the man, looking straight up at him.

Then Voldemort did the unexpected.

He undid a button of his robe and unleashed his dick.

Harry stared at. Entranced, confused, uncertain, tingling in the bottom of his stomach, conscious, defiant, tired, weary, wary,… resigned.

‘Pleasure your master, boy,’ Voldemort half-hissed. ‘Show them your heart’s desire.’

 _‘That used to be my family.’_ Harry wanted to object. Opened his mouth to respond, but miscalculated Voldemort’s speed and strength. Suddenly the man’s hand gripped the hair on the back of his head and forced his mouth forwards, down onto the man’s cock.

Harry almost coughed. Felt the ache in his cheek. _‘So much bigger than mine,’_ his mind supplied. His own cock twitched his body’s betrayal, the perverted part of his mind that rejoiced at the concepts ‘cock inside me’. Before today, he really hadn’t suspected that to be more than a passing thought.

Intuitively he licked the head with his tongue. Swallowed down some of the spit that had gathered. His hands seemed to flourish in perversion as well, for they lifted from his sides to the rest of the cock in front him. His right hand tried to wander into the opening of Voldemort’s robe, but was briefly rejected by a slap on the wrist.

He felt Voldemort’s two hands gripping his hair now, felt the back of the man’s wand bump into his head. _‘All I need to do to escape,’_ Harry rationalized all of a sudden, _‘is bite really hard and grab the wand.’_

‘The boy was raised to serve,’ Voldemort announced to his audience. ‘Now he will learn to only serve _me_.’

Then Voldemort started moving Harry’s head up and down his cock. Harry coughed and almost heaved and tried to gain control over the situation, tried to create space with his hands, but Voldemort offered him no remorse. In and out and in and out and in and out. The rhythm was relentless. The scent was starting the get muskier - manlier? - Harry wanted it to stop. Harry wanted to feel the cock come. Harry wanted to taste a man’s seed. Harry wanted to heave and throw up. Harry wanted to run. Harry wanted to curl up and lay his head in somebody’s lap. Harry wanted this to slow down, please?

Suddenly Voldemort removed his cock from Harry’s mouth and bent his head a bit so Harry was looking straight into the man’s eyes. _‘You are mine,’_ the man hissed possessively. Then the man came. His seed shot all over Harry’s face - he felt it on his lip, felt it dribble in his mouth, felt the wetness on his cheek, had to suddenly close an eye, felt it pool on his forehead.

One of the hands let go of him - Harry only noticed when he glimpsed the wand pointed at his forehead. His head still ringing from the force and the size and the loss of control, he didn’t flinch when unknown spells were cast, was only dimly aware - in between letting spit dribble from his mouth, curiously trying to place the taste of sperm and trying to get a handle on his breathing - that something was happening with his forehead. That something _unnatural_ was shifting and being guided away from his forehead to his… throat? A sudden rush of cold along his upper head. A tiny whimper of pain escaped Harry. ‘ _Something is missing,’_ flashed through him. A light blinded him then, a vicious turquoise. 

Then Voldemort let go of him completely, even gave him a little shove. Harry stumbled to the ground, exhausted. His attention wavered. He understood that Voldemort was simply continuing on his explanation or plans to his followers, but he just couldn’t focus anymore. Not when he realized that… he’d… come during the abuse (and potential mutilation).

After a while he started to become more aware of his surroundings once more. He wiped the traces of sperm off his face, saw the wet stains dry up, leaving their white colour behind as evidence. He became aware of Nagini staring at him, coiled up not far from him, and wondered whether she’d been there the entire time. He heard the sound of owls flying off again, but placed the small cracks that accompanied the sound with what he identified as Apparition.

The graveyard fell quiet. _‘How long have I been here?’_ he asked himself. _‘Did nobody come looking?’_ He knew the answer to that question however. Nobody would have come looking. Adults generally only showed up after the facts and danger had passed. Even when Ginny was about to die in the Chamber of Secrets, not a single teacher was preparing to go looking for the girl.

Then Voldemort loomed over him. ‘Ah, pet,’ the man greeted him almost fondly. The nickname grated, but he was just… too exhausted to protest.

Harry looked at the man. It… He didn’t know what to think anymore. Of Voldemort, himself, the situation he’d ended up in, the entire day, even his life. ‘What now?’ he asked wearily.

Voldemort smirked. ‘Now, pet, I’m going to let you go.’

Harry blinked in confusion. He’d half expected to be kidnapped, after the certainty of death had evolved to sexual abuse. ‘Why?’

Then Voldemort did the oddest thing: he crouched and grabbed Harry’s head tenderly with a hand, then stroked his cheek. ‘Because I have destroyed you, pet, even if you do not yet realize the full extent.’ Harry forced his breathe to remain a constant rhythm. ‘I am letting you go, because you are not a threat to me anymore.’

Then Voldemort’s hand guided Harry upwards by lifting his chin, forcing Harry to follow the man into a standing position.

‘You are too young to survive living with me yet,’ the man soothingly said, as if he really was explaining a dog why the dog had to sit in a cage in the garden. ‘You need to discover your’ - here the man threw him a playful smirk - ‘other strengths first.’

Harry swallowed anxiously. What had Voldemort done to him? What gave the man this certainty? ‘What makes you think I will return to you?’ he finally managed, almost defiantly.

Voldemort’s expression was too satisfied not be believable. ‘Because you are mine. Every time you will look in a mirror, you will remember me. Every time you think to touch yourself or another, you will envision me. Every person you talk to will forgot who you were, who you are.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You _will_ return to me, willingly, of that I am certain.’

At that pronunciation, an existential fear started to grip Harry’s heart. ‘I will run,’ he promised. ‘You won’t find me for years.’

Voldemort _hugged_ him, shifting Harry’s world view again, and gripped his arms around Harry’s back possessively.

‘You and I, pet,’ the man hissed excitedly in Parseltongue, ‘are intertwined. I can wait decades for we have forever to spare.’

It was the kind romantic promise Harry’d read in his aunt or Hermione’s novels before, the delusions propagated by Jane Austen and other warmongers.

‘But you will return sooner than that,’ Voldemort stepped back and then briefly cupped _Harry’s_ genitals. ‘I hold the key to your release after all.’

Harry felt like hiding in a cupboard forever.

Voldemort’s hand went inside a robe pocket and came out with Harry’s wand. ‘Your wand, pet,’ the Dark Lord offered.

Harry gingerly accepted it. ‘How am I getting back?’

Voldemort then conjured a cylindrical object, tapped it with his wand and handed it over.

Harry only realized when he had it in hand that the bastard had given him a replica of his dick and made it into a Portkey. It even felt realistic.

Voldemort laughed fully now, teeth showing. ‘To tide you over.’

‘What’s the password?’ Harry muttered angrily.

‘Wandholder.’

He shouldn’t of course have repeated dubiously ‘Wandholder?’ for the next moment he was whirling into space. Away from the graveyard, away from the Dark Lord, away from humiliation.


	13. Curiosity killed the cat (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's curiosity has unforeseen consequences during Voldemort's resurrection.

# Just Harry

The Portkey brought Harry to the outskirts of Hogsmead. Before he could orientate himself, before he could apply the lessons taught to him the year before concerning Portkey travel, he landed harshly on the ground. The Portkey, Voldemort’s _souvenir_ , stumbled out of his hand. Automatically his hands reached out to catch it, before his mind corrected him. He grabbed it still, only to throw it into a bush a little way’s off.

‘ _Let the rats have it,_ ’ Harry thought to himself. He didn’t want to ever see it again.

He stood up then and looked about himself. He was about halfway the Shrieking Shack and the village. His eyes shifted to the sky, only to find the darkness of the night and the pale light of a half moon obstructed by the fast moving clouds of the Highlands.

The black sky was damning. This time of the year, this close to midsummer, sunset lasted easily to midnight. _‘About two or three o’clock then,’_ he concluded. The task had started out at eight in the evening, meaning that time had passed faster than he’d expected (or wanted).

Remembering all of the passageways into the castle, Harry hesitated as to where to go. _‘They must be worried about me,’_ he hoped to himself, Voldemort’s confidence in mind.

Given the events of the night below, the improbability of Honeyduke’s basement being accessible, Harry headed out towards the Shrieking Shack. He couldn’t walk very fast, plagued by fatigue, uncertainty and echoes of the night he’d had.

He stumbled from time to time, his eyes set on the distinctive shape of the Shack, longing for a bed and a friendly face causing him to forget about the path before him.

If it weren’t for the existence of werewolves, Harry wished it was a full moon so he could see better. He also wished he still had his glasses.

The door of the Shack creaked as he opened it. A ghoulish noise swept through the entrance hall coming from upstairs. Harry shivered. He knew it was a simple spell, designed to cause fear in trespassers. In his state it actually had an effect. Despite the late spring temperatures, a coldness gripped his heart as if it were the depth of winter and he was listening to the wind howl from his cupboard in Surrey. (There was a crack beneath the front door you couldn’t see, but feel along the crack beneath the cupboard door, letting frost settle into the floor and his mattress.)

Cautiously, Harry descended the stairs to the cave that led into the tunnel coming from the Whomping Willow. Had it been but a year since Hermione and he had freed Sirius, a year since his Patronus chased away the Dementors?

He thought about casting Lumos to light his way forward, but considered the hour and the attention he would probably receive. ‘ _I don’t even know what they did with Cedric’s body._ ’ The thought felt bitter, as if there was anything he could have possibly done to save Cedric when he couldn’t even save himself.

‘ _I want my bed,_ ’ he thought again, realizing he was going in circles inside his mind, traipsing around the core issue. ‘ _I want Hermione. I want Ron. I want Sirius’s unwashed scent. I want Hagrid’s tea and the warmth of his cabin. Fang’s slobber, Hedwig’s stare._ ’

He bumped into the tunnel’s side more often than he liked and reached out blindly to find the Willow’s tame root. Crawling onto Hogwarts grounds didn’t feel as liberating as he wanted it to be.

Considering the doors to the castle were locked, it wasn’t even comforting.

Helplessly he looked about himself and the castle. If his legs weren’t as feeble, his arms aren’t as wobbly, he would have thought about climbing a wall and breaking a window. If he’d feel the strength to face the world, he would have knocked. Pride and caution held him back.

Filch’s semi-serious mutterings to Mrs Norris about chains and dungeons suddenly felt a bit too frightening, now that Harry knew too well the sexual undertone of the wizarding world. ‘ _There must be a reason he stays here._ ’

Harry shuddered at the imagery and turned away from the doors. He decided to go knocking on Hagrid’s doors. The man wouldn’t turn him down. And he wouldn’t ask too many questions.

So he made the distance to Hagrid’s little hut. His hand was about to knock on the door when he heard a huge sob from the inside. He tweaked his ears to the sound, curious, the knock all but forgotten. ‘I jus’ cannae belief,’ Hagrid’s muffled voice sounded.

The gentle, familiar voice of Mme Maxime replied: ‘Zhe boy eez not gone, mon ami. I am certain qu’il est in a place better.’

Harry turned away, overcome by emotions he couldn’t place again. ‘ _Is he talking about me?_ ’ clashed with ‘ _I’m glad she’s here to comfort him_ ’. He found himself reluctant to intrude. Hagrid he could handle, but Madame Maxime? He didn’t know her well enough to bare his emotions with her present. ‘ _She’ll probably ask questions too._ ’

He walked away from Hagrid’s door and hesitated over which direction to take. ‘ _Isn’t there’s a door in the courtyard behind the Astronomy tower? Leading to the fourth floor?_ ’

He thought there was, but his memory was vague. When he’d looked at the Marauders’ Map so far, he’d only ever focused on the passageways leading outside Hogwarts’ grounds or the castle within, never quite the in-between.

So he moved on and shuffled around the corner of the castle. Dark and blurry, his vision had him walk up to quite a few windows he’d mistaken for doors.

As a castle went, Hogwarts really defied all logic with its seven floors, five towers and two levels of dungeons greater the castle itself. Then there was the lake that splashed along the sides, the wings that expanded from the central hold going up to the towers. Hogwarts as such was more than a cathedral or castle, but too modest in style to be compared to a palace. It was a contradiction and it was that contradiction that made it so enticing to live in.

‘ _So I’m not on the fourth floor after all?_ ’ Harry mused to himself as a he studied the painting in front of him. If he was not mistaken, the door had taken him from one side of the castke right to the other side and up a couple of floors.

He vaguely recognized the corridor. Somebody had shoved into his shoulder once, a little bit closer to the stairways.

The thought felt depressing now that he had thought it. The inner strength that had kept him going in November, when only Hermione stood by him, that righteous feeling of being on the right side felt absent now.

‘ _Tonight the hero has succumbed,_ ’ he considered morbidly. He _still_ didn’t know how to feel about it all.

The Gryffindor common room was quiet when he slipped in, the Fat Lady almost absent-minded as he murmured the password.

Everybody was asleep, it seemed. The notion felt completely normal, yet hurt at the same time. This would be the first time he’d come in this late without some of his friends having waited until his arrival.

Then he shook the notion off and sought the comfort of his bed, drawing the curtains all around.

The comfort of the duvet and his pillow drew him in instantly. His eyes closed his muscles relaxed and the events of the day faded out into the surreality of dreamscape.

-–

He slept for longer than he imagined he would. Through the late rising of his year mates, through the rumours of breakfasts, beyond the morning routine and quite into noon.

Waking up was abrupt. One minute he’d been a pink unicorn rushing through a rainbowy Forbidden Forest, trying to flee from the avances of the deep purple Dark Horse, the next he realized he wasn’t a unicorn at all and he’d slept in late, because the sun shone too bright.

It had been a game, Harry considered half-consciously. The Horse chased and he - the unicorn - teased and hinted, but ran and ran. It had been in fact some kind of mating ritual.

At that thought, Harry’s stomach tensed up. ‘ _I ate his seed_ ’, Harry abruptly remembered, ashamed.

He rolled out of bed, untangled himself from the curtains, felt in his trunk for the towel he knew he had there and stumbled into the bathroom, heading straight into a shower stall.

He’d forgotten he was still wearing his robes right until he turned on the water and got soaked through.

The warm water, a comfort he usually absorbed for longer than strictly required, turned out to be a huge mistake. The wound on his arm, where the knife had cut into his veins, had scabbed over lightly during his sleep. Its fragile structure proved fallible to the relentless flow of the water.

Bleeding anew, he shuffled outside the stall, clutching his towel around his groin, while holding a corner tight on the wound to stem the blood flow and cautiously made it into the dorm room.

Curiously, he still saw hide nor hair of any of his dorm mates. He would have warranted someone would at least have sought him out.

He sat on his bed for a while, allowing the summer breeze fluttering through the open window to dry the water off of his body.

He was staring blankly at the room and its beds when he heard the door creak open.

A quick glance downwards confirmed his most private area was covered.

It wasn’t Ron, Neville or even Dean or Seamus who walked in. Instead it was Hermione.

She’d been crying.

He could tell by the puffiness of her eyes.

He wondered if she’d broken up with Viktor, for her to have been crying.

Conscious of the volatility privileged to emotional distraught girls, Harry decided to let her speak first. That would definitely give him a clue as to how he should respond.

Hermione didn’t seem to see him.

She just walked in, uncertain. She even looked about herself as to make sure nobody was around, not registering he was sitting there nearly naked, before she walked over to _his_ trunk and opened.

Harry frowned. ‘ _Something strange is going on here_ ’, he thought.

She browsed through his stuff, as if looking for something specific.

His face turned red in embarrasment when she picked out one of his underpants. Then she took out one of the oversized t-shirts he’d bought in Diagon Alley before third year.

She sniffed the shirt as if it held the secret to life.

‘Oh Harry,’ she whispered to the shirt, ‘why did it always have to be you?’

Mystified, Harry decided to break the silence: ‘Hermione?’

She squeaked. It sounded like ‘eep’. ‘I’m sorry!’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you were here!’

Harry frowned down at himself. ‘Hermione?’ he said again. ‘What’s going on?’

She gave him a wan smile. Opened her mouth to speak. Swallowed the words she wanted to say. Looked away from him (still didn’t notice his nakedness). ‘I-I… I can’t talk about it right now.’

She stood up suddenly and rushed out of the room (his shirt and underwear clutched inside her hands). He heard her sob right outside the door, then rush down the stairs.

Befuddled, Harry let the towel fall down to the floor, grabbed the first robe he could find out of his trunk and (mindful of his arm) pulled it over his head.

His hand hesitated as it touched the door knob. It wasn’t as much the confrontations he was facing that caused his hesitation, but the sudden constation that if even _Hermione_ just stole clothes out of his trunk, other less scrupulous people would ruffle through his possessions too.

He didn’t know an above-average locking charm. Nor did he know the right shrinking charm that could safely shrink his trunk.

So he took out what he cherished the most: his photo album, invisibility cloak, Gringotts’ key and just to be certain the rest of his underwear.

With the expertise of a thief, Harry put his possesions in hard to reach and hard to see places (beneath the mattress, on top of the gazebo, hidden in the bed’s curtains,…).

Only then did he venture out and braved the stairway to the common room.

Which was empty of course. ‘ _Saturday afternoon,_ ’ he remembered. ’ _Exams are over, I think.’_

The corridors were quiet. A solemn mood seemed to reign the castle’s portraits. From time to time he saw a glimpse of fellow students talking to each other in an empty class room.

Now that he was here, now that he knew Voldemort must have done more than he thought he’d had, now that his arm throbbed more than his cheeks ached, Harry didn’t quite know what to do. ‘ _Should I go to the headmaster’s office?_ ’ he pondered. ‘ _Or go to the hospital wing?_ ’

Then he remembered Hermione wasn’t the only person who’d been crying. Hagrid had been too.

Direction decided, Harry headed down the central stairway, sidestepped the vanishing steps, jumped up a swinging stair to catch it going down and tried not to bump into a Ravenclaw boy he couldn’t place.

The hospital wing was quiet when he slipped in, solemn. It reminded him of second year, when the petrified students dominated the bed.

Sure enough, two beds were occupied and people surrounded both of them.

Harry’s attention was drawn away from Cedric’s parents crying silently over their deceased son to the other side of the bed, where an uncanny body lay and the headmaster sat staring.

Harry shivered. _‘That’s me,’_ reverberated through his mind. _‘What did Voldemort do?’_

He couldn’t help staring. They tried to give his ‘body’ some form of dignity by covering most of it with a white sheet, but the sheet did nothing to cover up the scalped forehead. Unconsciously, Harry’s hand went to feel his forehead, feel for the scar that should be there, but wasn’t.

He remembered the wet, cold feeling he’d felt there last night. _‘Am I dead?”_ he wondered to himself. _‘Is that my real body?’_ He’d not gotten the impression he’d died, but seeing this body, remembering suddenly that flash of light as Voldemort pushed him away… _‘What happened?’_ he thought, but couldn’t find an acceptable answer.

He shifted closer.

Dumbledore heaved a sigh and laid his hand on the body’s chest, about where the heart should be. He didn’t seem to notice Harry himself, which Harry found really strange. _‘Why does nobody notice I’m around? Even ghosts get noticed.’_

‘You did not deserve this, my boy,’ Dumbledore whispered, then made as to rise.

Harry decided enough was enough. ‘Headmaster?’ he said, before the man could leave.

Dumbledore turned his way. ‘Oh, my boy, I didn’t see you there.’

‘I’m right here,’ Harry said and pointed at the body in the bed. ‘That’s not me.’

The older man looked at him in slight confusion. ‘I don’t understand what you are saying, boy.’

Harry felt frustration stirring inside of him. ‘I’m Harry Potter,’ he exclaimed clearly. ‘That’s not Harry Potter.’

The man looked back and forth between Harry and the body in the bed. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I didn’t know Mr Potter swung that way.’ Harry blinked, wondering whether he was speaking Parseltongue again. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, my boy. A great tragedy.’ The headmaster rose and seemed to hesitate before laying a hand on Harry’s shoulder momentarily. It disavowed any notion of Harry being a ghost. ‘I’m glad to know that despite his short life, Mr Potter had the chance to love someone.’

The headmaster stepped away from him then, as if leaving him to his grieving.

Harry had to sit down in the abandoned chair. He stared at the body for a while in confusion, then drifted off into looking at the entire room around him in hesitation. _‘I am Harry Potter,’_ he thought to himself. _‘I’m not… Maybe I am. But why did? He’s Dumbledore. What did Voldemort do? That’s not my body. I’m not dead. My haircut really is ridiculous, why didn’t anybody ever tell me that?’_ Then it seeped through. _‘Everybody thinks I’m dead. That Harry Potter is dead.’_

 **‘Because I have destroyed you, pet, even if you do not yet realize the full extent.’** Voldemort had said.

Voldemort must have stunned him with that blue light, Harry decided. He’d not been attentive during their encounter, distracted by the events and implications going on around him, but that must have been when this body had been created. And the scar was gone, Harry recalled suddenly, hand going to feel something that wasn’t there anymore. Harry reluctantly tried to remember the sensations he’d felt then. Voldemort’s (real) wand had trailed from his forehead to his… throat?

Anxious now, Harry stood and rushed into the bathroom of the hospital wing (a place he could find blindly) and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He’d avoided the mirror while he showered, not feeling up to the salacious comments magical mirrors could provide. He didn’t at first recognize his own reflection.

 _‘He cut my hair,’_ Harry numbly thought. _‘My nose’s shorter too.’_ He didn’t even know there was an issue with his nose - it’s not like it was the ugly hook Snape’s was. But aside those relatively minor changes, there was a big one: a tattoo around his neck. Harry twisted and turned his body to try and see the back of his neck, because the tattoo he’d been given was like a circle, a ring. When he touched it with his fingers, he felt an odd sensation, a constriction of sorts, a deepening of the colour. The tattoo wasn’t a straight line either, there was a pattern of sorts. And it was - oddly - white ink. So it was there when you looked at it closely, but it didn’t attract as much attention in passing by. _‘Is there a spell to cast blacklight?’_

Then he saw what the ring actually was. Two snakes eating each other’s tail. The heads and tails met on the sides of his neck, which is why they were so subtle. A stray memory of Hermione reciting her Runes course flitted by his thoughts: the ouroborus, the world snake. The alchemical symbol of life, death and rebirth.

Harry didn’t need an explanation to understand Voldemort’s implied symbolism. A heavy pressure seemed to fall on his shoulders then.

He’d never liked being Harry Potter: not the monniker Boy-Who-Lived, not being cast away with the Dursleys as the criminal delinquent, not the stares and expectations. At the same time, he _was_ Harry Potter: not just a name, not just a legend, but a real person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry's identity is distorted by a combination of Notice-Me-Not and the taboo spell. Nobody recognizes Harry as Harry. The more he tries to emphasize himself, the more people ignore him.  
> This fic would have gone quite dark and depressing before it got 'better', a bit like how Anna Karenina throws herself in front of a train at the end of her tale.


	14. Fireborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The original spin on what became 'An unorthodox solution'. Part of that story is featured here.

### The Conundrum

Some would have you believe Albus Dumbledore was as mad as a hatter. After all, have you seen his robes? The patterns? The colours? Others would shake their heads and proclaim the wizard to be the Great Manipulator, the one true Dark Lord hiding behind a silver veneer.

The truth was neither here nor there - never could be as clear cut as opponents and fans would like. Albus Dumbledore was a bright and gifted man. A man who had his flaws, yet was not ashamed to acknowledge them (when confronted of course, coming out still wasn’t a thing for centenarians). Early confrontation with his inner depths, early tragedy, had made him a proponent of change - in every aspect where it counted.

He liked mismatched socks, Flavour Beans, his tea without the milk, yet most of all he liked the way Fawkes’ plumage would subtly shift from one birth cycle to another. _Even time weathers down the endless_ , the red-orange-golden feathers would whisper.

It wasn’t thus a surprise that - having veered off the greater good - young Albus would master the art of transfiguration and venture into the abstracts of alchemy in cahoots with that other illustrative figure: Nicholas Flamel.

It wasn’t also such a surprise for Albus when, years after having last seen him, his preference for change would clash with people’s natural xenophobia. That this resistance happened to be the vanguard of a darker figure, well, who could have guessed? For every no Albus had ever given, there had been quite an equal amounts of yes. In the grand scheme of things (not the greater good, but the bigger painting), what is one negligent prejudice?

The obliviation of hope, it turned out to be.

Thus, heavy-hearted, Albus buried promise after promise, sought an answer to a conflict that shouldn’t exist. (“Why can’t people,” he would sometimes lament to himself, “just fight it out in the bowling lane?”) Then the Potter couple were killed, something transpired and the veil of darkness lifted over the world, leaving behind yet another orphan to be raised by strangers.

At least the boy had family. At least Albus knew - entirely by coincidence, by her own actions even - of the older sister, Begonia Dursley. (Something niggled in the back of his mind every time he thought of the lass, as if he’d not quite remembered something right.)

Suffice to say, because he knew of the person, because he was curious, because he felt as if young Lily and James deserved their fate as much as dear Ariana deserved hers, because you never _know_ with these things, he happened to be there when the child was handed over.

He never told Minerva why he’d decided on a letter instead of knocking on the door. Daren’t utter what he suspected when he saw the toddler laying in Hagrid’s basket. Tried for the best to ignore his observation for the better part of nine years.

Then one night he went bowling with some friends and he found himself drinking a pint too much.

He looked at the pins down the lane and then looked at the ball in his hand. His eyes grew moist as he felt the weight of the ball and thought of that young boy laying in his basket. The magic and presence concentrated around the boy’s forehead.

He tried to do a perfect throw, he really did. But the ball went off not even three feet after it hit the deck.

“How unusual, Brian,” his friend Nicolas told him as the man was about to pick up his own ball. (His turn.)

Albus sat down and stared at his half full glass of beer.

“What is on your mind, mon petit?” Perenelle asked, sitting next to him.

“I don’t know how to save him,” he finally dared admit.

Nicolas of course scored a perfect strike. “Save who?” he asked. You’d think six centuries would render you deaf, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Albus heaved a sigh. “The Potter boy.”

“Le bébé that survived that Voldemort figure?” Perenelle inquired.

Nicolas nodded as if something started to make sense. “Only Dark magic would vanish a body like that. The Killing Curse is too light-handed to do so.”

The downside of hanging around with people who’d gained longevity in the 14th century is that it’s rather difficult to hold things close to one’s vest.

“I suspect soul magic,” Albus shared. “Dark, foul, soul magic. I don’t know whether the boy actually survived the night. I don’t know whether the boy can be cured without dying.”

Nicolas had then clapped his hand on Albus’ shoulder and said: “You’ll figure something out. You always do.”

Perenelle shrugged and stood up, ready to play her turn. “I’ll have a look at our experiments, see whether there’s anything worthwhile in them.”

It did help Albus regain his confidence, though that one round did define the rest of his game: he ended up last!

* * *

It wasn’t a simply task, sourcing all the ingredients for what he wanted to make. Alchemy, that elusive branch of magic that transmuted life to a level beyond potion or ritual.

Nicolas Flamel had taught him much during his youth, Albus acknowledged. How many hours had he not sat in that Parisian workshop, watching odd substance bubble and twirl in beakers and cauldrons and tubes.

Albus’s hand shook only slightly as he worked in his own workshop, carefully turning the mixture known as _Flower of Potential_ upside down. The liquid hung suspended in the air until suddenly - on his command of course - the flask of dragon seed he’d recently come to possess thrust upwards into the _Flower_ and unleashed the seed.

Once he saw the two liquids were starting to interacting, turning from a mirky white into a vibrant yellow, Albus reverted the beaker, poured the liquid into a series of tubes that spiralled the next stage, the _Essence of Potential,_ into a special cauldron where a thestral testicle sprinkled with phoenix ash sat in the center.

Albus observed the way the _Essence_ spread into the cauldron, nodding in satisfaction as the liquid kept the spiral form. If it hadn’t, all of his hard work would have been for nought. 

_Nicolas would have called it unorthodox_ , Albus thought to himself. _Too bad his Stone never made it out of the Mirror. Would have been so much easier to do this._

The _Essence_ absorbed into the testicle, taking the phoenix ash inside as it did so. The testicle luckily didn’t swell, but started to glow bright yellow the more _Essence_ was absorbed.

When no more liquid remained, the testicle kept on glowing for some time as the temperature settled. Albus took care not to touch what he tentatively, affectionately perchance, called _Rebirth in a Lemon Drop._

Fawkes, who sat on a perch nearby, chirped inquirily.

Albus smiled gently at his faithful companion. “We’ll have to let it settle for now,” he said, “but I do believe I’ve found a way to cleanse the boy of Tom’s magic without actually dying.”

The thrill Fawkes gave him cheered him up for the rest of the week.

* * *

 _Rebirth in a Lemon Drop_ took three weeks to settle into full stability. Albus took great pleasure in picking out a rather suiting ring box to hand over the confection. Had to charm the colours himself of course. (Sometimes he profoundly missed the Muggle seventies.)

Albus hesitated for a couple of months after having accomplished his solution. How do you after all tell a teenage boy that he’s got something inside of him that needed to be removed irrevocably? That he had the choice of an experimental solution with unforeseen side effects or - effectively - suicide?

Didn’t help that the Dementors kept on their love affair with the boy who housed two souls. Or that Sirius Black, who’d proven to become such a disappointment, kept on infiltrating the castle. _Honestly_ , Albus thought disgruntled at the past years, _I’m supposed to be the protector of this place, not its figurehead._

So Albus stalled. He didn’t really have an excuse. Just explanations. Story of his life, really.

March became April. April turned into May. Everywhere he looked, Albus saw life rejoice in the season. The weather turned more turbulent of course. Rain, sun, wind all shifted about in the course of an hour.

In the Forbidden Forest, offspring was birthed and given the chance to strengthen during the summer season. The Thestrals had foals, Hagrid whispered excitedly along the table at lunch.

So it was Albus sent out a missive for young Mr Potter to join him in his office at the end of June, nearly three months later.

The boy’s knock on his door was hesitant, like the year before. It was one of the reasons that had decided Albus’s course of action, actually. There was not a single sense of entitlement in the knock.

“Come in, Mr Potter,” Albus said.

The door opened quietly, aware of the noise old hinges made.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” the boy said.

Albus gestured for the chair on the other side of his desk. “Have a seat, Mr Potter,” he replied.

The boy sat on the edge of the chair. Confused. Uncomfortable with the situation.

Albus looked at him, observing the young wizard before him. Picking apart the subconscious body language expressed. A Slytherin would have been as aware of his surroundings as Harry Potter. A Slytherin would have held still and not fidgeted as much.

“Sir?” the boy eventually asked.

Albus nodded, content with what he’d seen. “Do you remember when we spoke last year, after your confrontation with Tom Riddle’s diary?”

Potter glanced at the Sorting Hat, then at the display showing Gryffindor’s sword and Fawkes sitting on his perch. “Yes, sir. I remember.”

“Do you remember how I told you of my belief that Voldemort left a piece of himself behind inside of you the night he… confronted your parents and yourself?” He asked then. The boy was young still, he certainly didn’t need to know _all_ details.

Potter nodded shortly. “I do, sir.”

Albus folded his hands together and leaned forward. “I confess to having suspected as much when I saw you that night.”

The boy gasped. “You were there, sir?”

Albus shook his head. “I wasn’t in Godric’s Hollow that night,” he said. “But I was there when we left you with your aunt.” He paused then. A bit dramatic, perhaps, but necessary. “Ever since that day I’ve had my doubts as to what happened that night. Your adventure last year with Voldemort’s diary confirmed what I feared.”

“What-” the boy began, struggling to form coherent words. A common affliction among teenagers, Albus knew. “What did you fear?”

Albus brushed his own forehead. Potter copied his motions. “That your scar is more than it should be.” His fingers descended to his lips. “That what Voldemort left behind is both more crucial and more intrinsic than a mere language ability.” His hand came to rest on his desk then.

Potter stared at him. “What does it mean, Headmaster?” he asked.

Albus sighed. “It means, my dear boy, that I have been looking for a way to save you from Voldemort’s manipulations.” He looked over his glasses at the boy, then took the ring box out of his robe pocket.

The boy’s face became pale on recognizing the shape of the box. “P-p-professor,” he whispered. “I don’t understand what…”

“You need protection, Mr Potter,” Albus solemnly said. “In the absence of legendary artifacts, I had to figure a unique way to both assure your continued existence as well as deny Voldemort access to your person.”

The boy was really starting to look like an owl, Albus noted, curious.

“You-” the boy whispered, as if he couldn’t believe the situation and was about to be sick, “you want me to marry you?”

Albus blinked. Went over the conversation in his head and blushed.

Potter looked at him in abject horror.

Fawkes chirped his amusement into the room.

Potter looked at the bird in betrayal.

“I-” Albus began, then paused, trying to find the right words. “Just open the box, Mr Potter.”

Shaking hands approached the fluorescent rainbow-coloured box and shifted the box closer, inch by inch, as if trying to deny a hypothetical reality. Potter took in the entire room, setting and occupants, slowly, as if coming to a sudden realization about the nature of life and the universe.

Then he actually opened the box and just blinked stupidly at the content.

“In my original plans,” Albus said, “the only choice for your person would have essentially been suicide.” Potter let out a relieved sigh. Albus couldn’t help it. He did feel a bit insulted. “As long as you live in your current state, Voldemort cannot be… vanquished.”

Potter kept quiet for a bit, obviously thinking deeply about his situation. After a while, he asked: “Is that why you had me live with my Aunt and Uncle?”

Albus had the grace to blush again. “While I admit that your treatment at their hands might have helped in that regard, that wasn’t actually the purpose. You were placed with your relatives because they were your relatives and I happened to know of your aunt’s existence.”

“Oh.”

A slightly awkward silence descended upon the conversation, as sensitive subjects are wont to do.

“What does the lemon drop do?” Potter eventually asked.

Albus brightened up immediately. “Well, I was feeling inspired by Fawkes’ burning days and a perusal through ‘A History of Magic’, reading about lost hobbies, in creating the _Rebirth in a Lemon Drop_. Using my expertise in alchemy, I have created a way for a human to go through the equivalent of a phoenix’s burning day.”

Potter’s eyes flitted over towards the bird in question, then fell on the Lemon Drop. “So if I take this,” he said, “I will burn up and become a baby again?”

Albus shifted his glasses. “It’s not quite the same, Mr Potter.”

The boy tilted his head in curiosity. “What does it do then?”

Albus cleared his throat a bit. “After consuming _Rebirth in a Lemon Drop_ , you will have to burn… To the death, I’m afraid. Once that has happened, the real magic will immediately revitalise your body. As it is an experimental transmutation, there might be one or two unforeseen side effects.” Albus paused, wondering whether he should be telling all of this. Maybe he should have just offered the lemon drop and arranged a bonfire? “It is an unorthodox solution. If it weren’t for the necessity of your situation, I would be hesitant to allow it…”

“But I have to die no matter what,” Potter whispered.

Albus grimaced. Unfortunately, Voldemort rather abhorred bowling lanes. “Essentially. _Rebirth in a Lemon Drop_ gives you the choice to allow this in a controlled manner with the assurance of survival.”

Potter looked uncertain at the rainbow-coloured box and its content. “If… If I do this,” the boy almost seemed to beg. “Will I be free?”

“If your connection to Voldemort has been dealt with,” Albus promised, “I will do my utmost best to give you the freedom you desire. It pains me to give you a choice so cruel after the life you have lived, the sacrifices you have already given.”

Potter clasped his hand on the box, shutting it close and moving to his own pockets. “I have to think about this,” he said quietly as he stood.

Albus nodded.

“The Lemon Drop will keep for another six months,” he said to the boy. “But take your time. While it takes a year and some effort to create a new one, I will gladly do so for you.”

Potter nodded once. “Good day, Headmaster,” he said right before closing the door.

The minute he felt the stairs shift and the gargoyle close off the entrance again, Albus heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, that went better than I expected.”

Phineas Black, erstwhile Headmaster, snorted. “It would be kinder to cast the Killing Curse, Albus,” the portrait said.

### The Task

It was the sound that attracted the portraits’ attention at first. Applause. A roaring beast. Disquiet murmurs of hundreds of individuals. A loud voice announcing something. Then silence. A collective gasp.

At first, the former headmasters of Hogwarts were dismissive. They hung around the office all the time, they knew all too well what was taking place. The Triwizard Tournament. Quite a lot of them vaguely recalled their living counterparts had organized the event themselves.

The first task took place in the Quidditch stadium, which could be seen from the headmaster’s tower only if one hung one’s head outside the window and strained one’s eyes to the west. Impossible for the portraits to witness, so they ignored the contest as best they could. Concerned, they were not.

Then, following that last collective gasp, a deafening roar approached.

Theodorus Twistle, headmaster some four hundred years ago, graced with a position close to the windows, suddenly gasped: “By jolly, that’s a dragon!”

This brought forth a stampede to all the frames close to the windows.

“It’s heading this way!” shouted Elisabeth Piccadilly.

Most present tried to spot the dragon. Elisabeth’s observation was spotless. The dragon was heading their way, chasing a broom rider.

Nigellus Black bemoaned aggrievedly: “It’s that Potter boy again.”

“Bird,” one of the lesser known figures shouted, not at the window, but at innocent Fawkes, who’d been enjoying his golden perch perhaps too much. The bird in question glanced at the portraits. “Go out and do something! This portrait is all I’ve got!”

Fawkes was hesitant to abandon his perch, but decided that a quick look outside wouldn’t hurt. So he hopped off and glided towards the window sill.

The minute he laid eyes on the Potter lad, he warbled in dismay. “Not again!” he seemed to communicate. “I already saved that one!”

He glimpsed at the dragon, wondered why it always had to be overgrown reptiles, and dove into the fire, leaping out of it right about where Harry Potter was flying.

“Fawkes,” the boy gasped. “Get out of here! The dragon’s loose.”

Fawkes thrilled his reply. Harry Potter didn’t speak Phoenician, but suspected the answer to be something like: “You’re human, not a firebird, stupid.”

Harry focused on his broom, pushing it to its maximum speed. The surprise of Fawkes appearing had broken his concentration, giving the dragon an unnecessary advantage.

“Got to go,” Harry said and pushed into the feel of flying. Realizing that he’d been heading straight for the castle, he veered off towards the Forbidden Forest and the mountains hidden behind.

It was a foolish, reckless move. But he couldn’t afford the furious Horntail to destroy the castle, the stadium or Hogsmeade.

Fawkes decided to follow. You don’t hand out your healing tears to just anyone. Especially not to people who are going to die less than two years onwards. Plus, it had been a while since he’d done this chasing thing. It was kind of fun, he had to admit. Like that time with the pterodactyls. What a blast that had been!

The dragon roared and unleashed a blast of fire.

“Cutting it close, Potter,” Harry thought. Then dared to look behind him. He shouldn’t have. It made him remember why he’d been heading for the castle. All those towers made for excellent obstacles. This forest below… The Horntail’s gaining momentum. And his broom was at its upper limit. The fastest he’d ever flown it.

Not fast enough.

The dragon growled and snapped.

Harry felt the dragon’s breathe a bit too close to his feet for his wants.

“I’ve got to-” The dragon spewed its fire once more,.

Fawkes, who’d been following effortlessly, panicked.

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, the bird’s instincts screamed. So he called upon his flame and expanded it towards Harry Potter.

Several highly interesting things happened next.

First of all, Fawkes’ panicked flames sparked an unwanted burning day.

Second of all, the dragon had finally spotted the bird flying beneath the territory breacher.

Thirdly, Harry’s Firebolt proved its name to be a mere marketing stunt by skipping combustion and blowing away into ashes immediately.

Fourthly, nobody had ever studied the interaction between dragon fire and phoenix fire. Nor what effect these two might have upon the human body.

Fifthly: turns out souls can be affected by matter after all.

To the outside observer - three dragon tamers rushing after the loose dragon - there simply was a giant fireball that flashed into existence and lasted for a worryingly long 42 seconds.

For the three involuntary participants of this experiment, quite a lot happened.

Scholars wide and far would study the phenomena for ages to come, academically of course, yet none would ever quite come close to describing what exact law of nature applied to the situation, nor which laws of magic applied in this case.

Dragon, phoenix, human all survive. No special powers. Only Harry has turned female.Factually speaking, three unique beings triggered this, yet only one being emerged. Human, luckily. Male. Identifying itself as Harry Potter. Peculiar eyes - as if eternal flames were caught in them.

What caught the eyes of most first was of course the natural aptitude to flight. Forty-two seconds after the intense fire reigned, it contracted abruptly into a naked human form that did not fall, but hovered in place. Then immediately glided off towards the stadium.

The three dragon tamers who’d witnessed the entire thing were a bit slow in response. By the time they landed back in the stadium, they were just in time to see the familiar, yet different figure of Harry Potter craddling all of the dragon eggs close. Protectively.

Charlie Weasley approached the riders quickly. “What happened?” he asked.

“I…” Iovanna began, but trailed off.

She turned out to be the most eloquent of the three.

Albus Dumbledore had already risen from his seat, unsettled by the person he saw before him.

“Is it…” Bagshot wondered aloud. “Is the task over?”

The Triward’s jury members exchanged glances, not quite realizing what was going on, but understanding that something strange had taken place.

“I dare say it is,” murmured Dumbledore, recognizing yet not. “If I’m not mistaken… that is Mr Potter right there.”

Karkaroff scoffed. “You are getting old, Doomboldoor. Harry Potter boy. That is girl.”

Dumbledore nodded absentmindedly. “I suggest we go down to find out for ourselves.”

By the time they managed to reach the pitch, somebody had already taken some initiative. Dumbledore wasn’t all that surprised to see it was the Weasley boy, the dragon tamer, crouching close to the seated girl. Still at a respectable distance. Territory - such a curious phenomena, mused the old wizard.

“H-harry?” Charlie Weasley asked more than said.

The girl looked up from her close inspection of the dragon eggs. “Charlie,” she acknowledged. Then stared in confusion at what he was offering, namely his leather outer robe.

“You might er… be needing this,” he nodded in her direction, trying his utmost best to keep his stare at her face. “You’re naked.”

The girl briefly looked at herself in realization. “Oh. That’s a thing, right? Clothes.” Then she glanced around herself as if seeing everybody for the first time only just now. “Forgot about that.”

She sat the egg she’d been inspecting down, close to the other two real dragon eggs, and accepted the offered robe. There was no modesty at all present when she just stood up and pulled the robe.

Dumbledore and his fellow jury members were still keeping quiet. Observing the minutia of the interaction taking place before them. The more one learns from observation, the less questions one has to ask.

Charlie heaved a relieved sigh once the robe was on. “Uhm… Harry?” he asked. “Where did…. where did the dragon go?”

The girl blinked. It was only then that it became obvious her eyes had been altered. Slitted, like a dragon. Redish orange, like a flame. “We lost the race, didn’t we?” She shook her head and returned to sitting on the floor, caressing the eggs. Then she looked up and seemed to catch every dragon tamer’s gaze. “You can’t take the children,” she told them. “They’re mine now.”

Dumbledore decided it was about time to interfere. “Mister-” He heard Karkaroff scoff in the background, couldn’t quite shake off the impression Maxime was rolling her eyes. “Mister Potter - could you perchance enlighten us as to what happened?”

Potter shrugged. “Fawkes happened, didn’t he?”

Fawkes? What had his phoenix to do with all of this?

“Could you elaborate?”

She shrugged again. “I was racing, the dragon was chasing. Then Fawkes showed up. We raced some more.” She paused in contemplation. “The dragon showered me with flames. Fawkes covered me with his flames. The dragon ate Fawkes.” She glimpsed at herself, then chanced a glance upwards. Dumbledore’s expression was dumbfounded. Crouch just looked awkward. “Then we all went up into flames. Burning day,” she confided. “Now there’s just me.” She laid a hand on an egg. “Harry Potter burned. The dragon burned. Fawkes burned.” She stayed silent for several seconds. “Out of the ash and flame I have been wrought. Different, nonetheless the same.”

Crouch seemed to accept the explanation for what it was. “Well then, I suppose the First Task is indeed over.” He looked at his fellow jury members. “I suggest the jury adjourns for a short while, during which Mme Pomfrey can have a look at young Ms Potter here.”

Charlie Weasley cleared his throat. “And the dragon eggs?”

Crouch made a dismissive noise. “I’ll have my assistant Weatherby contact the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, they’ll sort it out. For now, I see no issue in Ms Potter managing these eggs. Unless you happen to have brought a second hatching Horntail?”

Dumbledore put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Someone from your team can of course remain behind. In combination with Mr Hagrid’s skills, I’m quite sure nothing untowards will befall these eggs.”

Charlie nodded in acquiescence.

The jury watched the dragon tamers slink off, then - it really was unavoidable - Ms Potter stand up and try to gather the four eggs - three live, one false - in her arms. Surprisingly, it was Headmistress Maxime who took pity on the girl by conjruing a trunk and charming it afloat.

Harry inclined her head in thanks, smiled and said: “Thank you, Ma’am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could have become many things: a Harry/Charlie fic, a superhero!Harry in the MCU, even a Captain Marvel/fem!Harry fic.  
> The backstory I started developing kind of negating this spin; the direction I conceived of for this story to go on fit more along the lines of 'An unorthodox solution'. I'm leaving open the possibility that I might further develop that narrative universe.  
> A brief teaser for that, maybe?  
> 1\. 'An unorthodox solution' : Albus-centric. Harry loses the Horcrux, but becomes female.  
> 2\. 'An ordinary crime' : Mundungus tries to steal from Grimmauld Place, but comes across fem!Harry.  
> 3\. 'Burn, the witch croaked':  
> __1. Harry gets kidnapped, raped by Voldemort and liberated by Umbridge.  
> __2. Voldemort is 'killed'. Umbridge reigns supreme.  
> 4\. 'Gather, children, the end is upon you':  
> __1. Vampires revolt and kill off wizards & witches.  
> __2. Harry (pregnant) + Bill & Fleur (pregnant) + Tonks (pregnant) survive the vampires' slaughter and retreat to an island in the Atlantic.  
> __3. Nagini finds Harry and joins them on the island.  
> __4. An intrigued Jormungandr (Loki's son) visits the island, helps Nagini transform back into human form and joins the 'clan' on the island. [Nagini/Jormungandr]  
> 5\. 'Bespeak, beast, of your burden':  
> __1. Teddy Lupin infects all the children with lycanthrophy.  
> __2. Nagini & Harry travel to Asgard in search for Fenrir (Loki's son).  
> __3. Fenrir joins the clan on the island. [fem!Harry/Fenrir (MCU)]  
> 6\. 'Kill, the father whispered':  
> __1. Loki turns up in 2012 to conquer the world. Nagini and Harry visit the Helicarrier to check whether a family reunion is on the table with granddaddy Loki.  
> __2. Voldemort survived, but ended up permanently possessing a suit of armour. The "Hollow Knight" finds 'his' girls (Harry & Nagini) on the Helicarrier.  
> __3. The kids meet their absent father.


End file.
